1

Understanding metaphilosophy to understand Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations

MPhil Philosophical Studies

I confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis.

Abstract:

This thesis aims to explore the metaphilosophical insights in the Investigations, arguing for the importance of metaphilosophy and its critical importance for a satisfactory understanding Wittgenstein’s text. My central claim is that a persuasive picture of the work, as having two distinct aspects in tension, should be overcome. Frequently, the Investigations is portrayed as in tension between a positive (constructive) side and a negative (therapeutic) side. This means metaphilosophical analysis has been driven by attempts to comprehend these two aspects in a coherent understanding of the works method and aims. I argue that from this picture there has not been a satisfactory reading of the work, rejecting constructive and elucidatory views, and criticising the common characterisation of the therapeutic view.

This limiting picture is overcome by exploring a radically therapeutic understanding, influenced by the work of later Baker. I show how by losing the two aspect picture, we can come to appreciate the text as having a conception of philosophy that has only one aim, which is best conceived as therapeutic.

I then respond to two worries for the therapeutic view with two changes in emphasis. One tries to accommodate Wittgenstein’s concern with community and shared ways of acting, the other with the dialogical construction of the text. These aim to improve on Baker’s view without undermining its fundamental insights. 2

Impact statement:

The thesis is centred on questions of metaphilosophy and methodology, and how we can understand these with respect to Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. Therefore, the areas it is most likely to impact are Wittgensteinian scholarship and academic understanding of metaphilosophy. However, as I explore a therapeutic understanding of philosophy, this can also increase the exposure of different conceptions of philosophy to non-academic audiences. The most direct influence that the thesis can have is toward the academic perception of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and ways in which philosophers have attempted to understand his metaphilosophical insights. The thesis uncovers and explores a picture that implicitly or explicitly influences how many people view the Investigations. From within this picture I have shown how interpreters have been led to several unsatisfactory views, which are linked to their picture of inquiry. I then show how an alternative way of understanding the workings of the text, the therapeutic view, is successful where the previous picture was unsuccessful. I hope this will influence academic perception of Wittgenstein by bringing to attention the nature of this picture and its failing, while introducing an alternative one successful one. This will not satisfy all interpreters, with vested interests in different perceptions of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, but it will introduce a new way of relating different interpretations, and the ways in which we can evaluate the success of different views. This is by relating them to the way in which they respond to the picture of two aspects, and how many aim they think Wittgenstein’s philosophy has. Outside of studying Wittgensteinian, my thesis also considers what it is to study philosophy philosophically and makes some claims about what the subject of metaphilosophy is and how it should be done. The current climate of discussion regarding the importance, coherence, and continuing relevance of mainstream academic philosophy means that philosophers of all persuasions should be interested in how to understand the subject of philosophy, and how we can do it differently. Presenting and defending a radically different conception of philosophy could also have a wider impact on societies relationship to philosophy. In my thesis I defend Wittgenstein’s therapeutic conception of philosophy. An important aspect of which is it’s understanding of philosophical problems as affecting individuals, which are in need of therapeutically dissolving to increase individual freedom of thought. This alternative vision of philosophy can be used to highlight different aspects of philosophy not usually widely perceived in society. It can help change people’s relationship to philosophy by showing that it can be useful and directly relevant to the prevailing way people think about the world.

3

Contents

Introduction 4

Chapter 1: Metaphilosophy 8 i. Metaphilosophy? ii. Wittgensteinian metaphilosophy? iii. Metaphilosophical philosophy? iv. Going forward, a persuasive picture of the Investigations

Chapter 2: A critique of the two task view of the Investigations 26 i. The two-aspects ii. Accommodating the two-aspects iii. Overcoming the picture

Chapter 3: A radically therapeutic understanding of Wittgenstein’s 49 metaphilosophy i. Baker and the radically therapeutic view ii. Metaphilosophical implications of the view iii. §122 revisited

Chapter 4: Two worries 63 i. Individualistic worry ii. Positive aspects worry

Concluding Remarks 81

Bibliography 83

4

Understanding metaphilosophy to understand the Philosophical Investigations

“In every serious philosophical question uncertainty extends to the very roots of the problem. We must always be prepared to learn something totally new.” (ROC, §15)

Introduction: Mainstream analytic philosophy, dominant since the early 20th century in the English-speaking world, has recently been the subject of criticism from several different perspectives. Brandom has chastised it as a “degenerating research programme, motivated by suspect methodological aspirations” (2006, p.202). Unger claims “the ideas of mainstream philosophy have been… analytically empty ideas” (2014, p.22). While Preston argues the state of crisis goes even deeper and that analytic philosophy never was a coherent philosophical programme (2007). Increasing attention is being payed to analytic philosophy, and a reckoning is underway on its importance, coherence and continuing relevance. Anyone taking these criticisms at all seriously will be in a position where the future of philosophy becomes a pressing issue. A natural response in such a situation is to contemplate alternative understandings of philosophy. How can we do philosophy differently? How has philosophy been done differently? It is from these beginnings that I propose to look at the nature of metaphilosophical study and to apply it to Wittgenstein’s thought, to try and understand a different way of doing philosophy. Wittgenstein’s consistent fascination with philosophy itself, and his treatment of it as a fundamental area of philosophical understanding is a striking and important part of his thinking. From the Tractatus through to the Investigations and beyond, Wittgenstein was a philosopher interested in what it is to philosophise. This fixation is something I return to in several places in this essay, using it as evidence for the importance of understanding the metaphilosophy of Wittgenstein’s thinking. The depth one finds in Wittgenstein’s philosophy is not fully covered by his great skill at tackling the problems of philosophy. His ability to uncover why we are drawn to philosophical problems and why we go wrong in the ways in which we do is what makes him a truly great philosopher. As significant as the problems of philosophy for Wittgenstein is coming to terms with the nature of a philosophical problem, the correct method with 5 which to treat or solve philosophical problems, the virtues required to do philosophy, and the personal courage and struggle needed to be a philosopher. From these ‘metaphilosophical’ themes, it is Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy that most interests me and is most relevant to reflecting on alternative futures for philosophy. Specifically, this will focus on the Philosophical Investigations1, which reveals a vision for a new conception of philosophy through how it operates. I aim to consider a number of different ways of understanding the text, ultimately defending a radically therapeutic view as the most successful way of reading the text. The idea that philosophy has a therapeutic aim can be traced back as far as Socrates and Plato. In the Apology Socrates describes his philosophical practice as aiming to persuade young and old to “take no care either for the body, or for riches, prior to or so much as for the soul” (Cary, 1897, 17). Inspired by Wittgenstein, a resurgence in interest in therapeutic philosophy has occurred. This is because for some, Wittgenstein’s philosophy should be understood as trailblazing a method of philosophy where philosophical theories are eschewed, and philosophical problems should be therapeutically dissolved and “completely disappear” (§133). The central claim of the essay is that this therapeutic interpretation is the correct way of understanding the Investigations. It reaches this conclusion by first surveying an influential view of the way in which the Investigations functions. This view sees the text as having two aspects which are in tension with each other unless they are able to be coherently accommodated. There are ‘positive’ aspects where Wittgenstein seems to be presenting positive philosophical commitments. These are contrasted with the negative aspects, where Wittgenstein appears to reject proposing philosophical theories and seeks to undermine traditional philosophy. Unfortunately, from such a view only failed interpretations have followed, as will be shown in chapter 2. I contrast this failure to with the therapeutic view, demonstrating how one of its crucial insights is uniting the two aspects into a single therapeutic goal.

1 References to the Philosophical Investigations (1953) will just be accompanied by the number of their section. Refer to the bibliography for the abbreviations used for other works by Wittgenstein. 6

Outline: The essay begins by exploring the topic of metaphilosophy, arguing that we must understand metaphilosophy to understand the Investigations. The main difficulty of thinking about the Investigations ‘metaphilosophically’ is understanding the relationship between what is said in the work and the work’s conception of philosophy. This is because, depending on your conception of the work’s conception of philosophy, you will understand the role of the passages differently. To deal with the problem, I begin by trying to understand what metaphilosophical study is in general. I look at what it is concerned with, and how we can try and do it in a Wittgensteinian spirit. I also add to this some historical context by relating some aspects of Descartes and Nietzsche’s conceptions of philosophy to Wittgenstein’s. I defend a conception of metaphilosophical study that is anti-foundational and on the same conceptual level as any other philosophical topic. Next, in chapter 2, I look at the way in which the literature has understood the relationship between the metaphilosophical insights of Wittgenstein, and the content of the book. Here, the major concern of my essay is explicitly explored, as I show the widespread acceptance of a certain picture which affects the way in which we try and read the Investigations. This dominating picture means that we are limited in the ways in which we conceive of how it functions; we are limited in how we understand its conception of philosophy and what it is trying to achieve. Alongside exploring it, I want to draw the limitations of all the views deriving from it. I believe that fundamentally it leads us into thinking the book is in tension and all the ways which have been used to try and overcome or remove this tension have failed. This is why I see this essay as trying to open up new possibilities and trying to undermine certain ways in which it is quite natural to read the Investigations. In chapter 3, I describe and defend a ‘radically’ therapeutic understanding of the work and its conception of philosophy. This is not something new, and my view is largely influenced by Gordon Baker. However, by drawing the comparison between this view and the failings of the previous picture, I draw out the most crucial insights from the therapeutic view. The ability to overcome the failure of the previous picture is what can be used to judge the success of the view. It is a liberating way to understand the Investigations, and a liberating way to comprehend philosophy. Alternative ways of reading the 7

Investigations have been compelling, but what I want to do is to shine a light on a fresh alternative reading, to look at the work differently. In chapter 4 I pose two worries for ascribing the therapeutic view to Wittgenstein: the individualistic worry and the positive aspects worry. In response to each worry I argue for a change in emphasis for therapeutic view. In both cases I show why the change of emphasis is necessary and demonstrate how it improves the view. I respond to the individualistic worry by looking at the methodological insights to be gained from the concept of a form of life. The positive aspects worry is addressed by appreciating the dialogical nature of Wittgenstein’s text. These remain faithful to Baker’s core commitment, but stress different methodological tools in Wittgenstein’s philosophy.

If convincing, this aims to not only describe some feature of metaphilosophical study but to present some novel insights into how the Investigations conceptualises philosophy and how it operates. It hopes to affect a change in the way in which one sees the Investigations, alongside stimulating thought and discussion on therapeutic philosophy.

8

Chapter 1: Metaphilosophy In this opening chapter, I want to begin by thinking a little about ‘metaphilosophy’ as a subject of philosophy. Its status and relationship to ‘normal’ philosophical enquiry is not straightforward and bears on my study of Wittgenstein’s own conception of philosophy. From understanding ‘metaphilosophy’, I begin to build a framework from which we can address Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, and the why’s and how’s of looking at its conception of philosophy. The radical content regarding the nature of philosophy in the Investigations must be approached carefully. Without careful preparation, we are prone to assume a picture of its metaphilosophy that I want to undermine. Important to this chapter, and the future chapters of the essay is demonstrating the relationship between positive and negative tasks in metaphilosophical critique. I want to highlight how this dualism of themes is important for the way that philosophers understand metaphilosophical critique, especially as it dictates two tasks for metaphilosophical critique. Going forward I want to show how it can lead to a picture of the Investigations as in tension and use this as an angle to judge the success of the therapeutic view. The picture is misleading because Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy as therapeutic, when properly understood, has only one task not two. Three sections correspond to three tasks; firstly, to get clear on the nature of metaphilosophical insight, I will look at the relation between metaphilosophical insight and philosophical insight. I am especially concerned by what level of abstraction we can understand a connection between them. Next, we must look at what importance this study has for understanding the Investigations and consider what is motivating analysing Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy. I argue that his metaphilosophical insights are central to understanding the rest of the book. Lastly, I want to relate this study to the broader history of radical metaphilosophical approaches by looking at Descartes and Nietzsche. From both these figures, we can gather insight into the key aspects of metaphilosophy, and specifically learn more about how we are to understand aspects of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical approach. I want to demonstrate the philosophical imagination from 9 the past that attempted to reconceive of philosophy. These different landscapes can highlight new possibilities and leave us open-minded towards Wittgenstein’s radical ideas. i. Metaphilosophy? The philosophy of philosophy may appear as a strange concept. It can initially strike one as an arcane and unenlightening rabbit hole. I want to give some thoughts on its nature that should demystify it as a subject, highlighting its equal status to other philosophical enquiries. Hopefully, this will demonstrate its unique quality of enabling radical philosophical alternatives to challenge the philosophical mainstream. My discussion is indebted to Cavell’s foreword to Must We Mean What We Say. I also want to stress the powerful pull of a picture of deconstruction and construction in metaphilosophy that is linked to the nature of radical critique. This conception will play out further in the rest of the essay and will be explored in detail with regard to the existing literature’s interpretation of the Investigations. Metaphilosophy. Even the word itself is controversial because of an implicit image of its nature that one gets from it. The use of the prefix “meta” confers the status of being self-referential, of applying the techniques from its subject to the subject itself. A culinary reviewer who begins to review the culinary reviews of other reviewers could be deemed a meta-reviewer. Their articles are a meta exercise. This picture usually dictates the idea that the meta subject is in some sense on a different level of abstraction from the original subject. The meta-reviewer is not reviewing food and so is not a culinary reviewer per se. She is doing something different, although related. There is an abstraction in the nature of the activity that confers the idea of being ‘above’ the original subject. In philosophy, if we were to use this picture, we would have ‘normal’ philosophy, your everyday subject on epistemology, metaphysics, ethics etc. This would be your culinary reviewer. Metaphilosophy would be the subject that is philosophically interested in the subject of philosophy itself. This is your meta-reviewer. As metaphilosophy is ‘meta’, it is an abstraction away from philosophy. Along with Cavell I think we should resist this picture of metaphilosophy. It is incorrect to see the relationship between metaphilosophy and its subject matter as parallel to the culinary 10 reviewer. Instead, remarks made about philosophy, its methods, and its aims, are “nothing more or less than philosophical remarks” (1976, p.xviii). They are on the same level as remarks about language, meaning, the mind and scepticism. Metaphilosophy is similar to epistemology, metaphysics and ethics in the sense that it just is doing philosophy. Philosophy is one of the subjects of philosophy. This is pertinent for an exploration of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy. Philosophers who consider philosophy to be modelled on science are more likely to consider the hierarchical picture of metaphilosophy. Comparing the difference to that of the one between doing physics and talking about physics. Although, as Cavell points out, this may be a “special view of philosophy” and a “partial view of science” (ibid), it can especially be resisted in our case due to Wittgenstein’s critique of philosophy being conceived of as science. 2 Wittgenstein explicitly rejects the hierarchical view in the Investigations: “One might think: if philosophy speaks of the use of the word "philosophy", there must be a second- order philosophy. But that’s not the way it is; it is, rather, like the case of orthography, which deals with the word "orthography" among others without then being second- order” (§121). He was critical of understanding anything as of a second-order, he sardonically questions whether we can spell any words at all “unless we can spell “spelling”” (Kenny, 1982, p.14). This has implications for interpreting the Investigations. The methodological insights cannot be easily separated from the philosophical ones. The methodological insights are philosophical insights. His conception of the nature of philosophy is as integral to his philosophy as any other aspect. If metaphilosophy is to be considered in the same way as any other branch of philosophy, we may then consider what is distinctive about its subject area. To state the obvious, metaphilosophy is unique in that it treats the subject of philosophy itself. Its main objective is to characterise philosophy in general; to understand its methods and its aims. This quickly incites a whole host of intriguing philosophical problems: what knowledge, if any, can we gain from philosophy? Is knowledge the goal of philosophy? If so, what kinds of knowledge? If not, what is the goal? What are its methods? Are they sui generis? Or the same as the methods of mathematics? Or natural science? Who is the audience for philosophy? Who, if anyone, can philosophy benefit?

2 See J. Beale (2017) for an exploration and defence of Wittgenstein’s anti-scientism. 11

One thing that is interesting in connection with metaphilosophy is its potential for radical critique towards traditional philosophy, and established ways of doing philosophy. A criticism aimed at the philosophical level, challenging a doctrine put forward within a philosophical system seems to be involved in the same practice as the original doctrine. However, a metaphilosophical critique can take the form of a critique that undermines a whole philosophical view, its aims, and its methods in philosophy. Here we see why many of the most influential works of philosophy contain metaphilosophical ideas. Cavell also refers to this potential: “innovation in philosophy has characteristically gone together with a repudiation – a specifically cast repudiation – of most of the history of the subject” (1976, p.xix). This may be an exaggeration, there is much innovation not linked to metaphilosophical insight, but it does suggest something that is true. Metaphilosophical ideas and insights have been extremely important throughout the history of philosophy. Cavell connects this potential for radical critique to the modern and argues that the relation between the “present practice of an enterprise and the history of that enterprise” is a relation that has “become problematic” (1976, p.xix). Cavell distinguishes the modern as specifically interested in its situation with respect to the history of its subject, and metaphilosophical critique is an expression of this kind of dissatisfaction. This kind of criticism can lead to new aims and innovative methods in philosophy, driving the subject forward. Radical metaphilosophical critique then relates itself to the history of the subject, but this relation can come in a number of different forms. The form of this relationship is influenced by the extent to which the critique remains committed to aspects of the old view of philosophy. This is related to the extent to which it wants to correct, displace or abandon philosophy. A metaphilosophical critique that remains committed to large swathes of the philosophical enterprise wants to correct philosophy. It aspires to correct philosophy in light of its now better-understood aims. A critique that rejects the enterprise, but nevertheless believes that there is still a role for philosophy, looks to displace philosophy and introduce a new way of doing and conceiving of philosophy. It rejects philosophy as understood, and wants to replace it with something new, yet this remains philosophical. Finally, a critique that rejects the enterprise, that believes philosophy is a misguided enterprise, aims to abandon philosophy. Views diverge on 12 the extent to which Wittgenstein in the Investigations rejected the enterprise of philosophy, and some have claimed that Wittgenstein aims for the end of philosophy. This is a mischaracterisation though. The nature of philosophical problems in the Investigations means that Wittgenstein does not believe he has ended philosophy (if there could be such a thing). Philosophical problems are caused by language and must be solved with language (§120), and the pictures that lie in our language and hold us captive will repeat themselves “inexorably” (§115). Language is part of our way of life, and as the problems lay in our use of language, there is no hope in trying to produce a total cure. I will expand on this later in the essay. Finally, I want to bring to attention, and elaborate on, a picture that strongly dictates our understanding of metaphilosophical critique. Due to the nature of alternative metaphilosophical systems being positioned historically, it seems that any critique must have both a positive and a negative element. The negative element is the metaphilosophical critique’s attempt to undermine the previous philosophical conception. This is combined with a positive element, whereby it presents its new conception of philosophy. These dual tasks of metaphilosophical critique are then usually applied to a view whereby it must achieve two tasks in its new conception of philosophy. This two task interpretation is intuitive and, as I will go on to explore, influences a lot of the literature surrounding the Investigations. Ultimately, I want to demonstrate how this two task interpretation of critique leads to a book that is pulling against itself, and that it is possible to read the Investigations as only attempting one task. The therapeutic understanding of philosophy wants merely to induce intellectual freedom from misleading philosophical pictures and dogmas. With this Wittgenstein aims not purely to undermine old views of philosophy, nor to present a new true view in philosophy. This overcomes the tensions in the Investigations when read as attempting two tasks. ii. Wittgensteinian metaphilosophy? All philosophers will operate with explicit or implicit conceptions of philosophy, and these will affect the style and nature of their research. Yet in most cases, it is not a worthwhile avenue of research, due to the largely shared general assumptions between reader and writer about what philosophy is. This is not so for Wittgenstein. I want to 13 highlight why understanding his novel metaphilosophical position is integral to making sense of the whole text. This means more than just interesting in their own right, the metaphilosophical insights hold the key to unlocking the rest of the work. I will first highlight some general reasons for finding interest in Wittgenstein’s alternative conception of philosophy. These general considerations strengthen my case somewhat, but I will show how I am claiming something stronger. Wittgenstein was a meticulous writer and spent significant effort trying to order his thoughts and ideas. Deleting, crossing out, marking, underlining, editing, revising and rewriting were all part of his philosophical process. Compulsively searching for the correct expression: “The task of philosophy is to find the redeeming word” (MS 105, quoted in Pichler, 1992). This indicates that the elements that make up the text are no mere passing thought or unimportant considerations. This should be combined with the topic of philosophy remaining a consistent feature throughout his philosophical development. From his earliest writings to his later, there remains a fascination with the philosophical enterprise. A cursory scan of his works will reveal this. In 1912 Wittgenstein delivered his first paper at the moral sciences club in Cambridge which was titled “What is Philosophy?” (lasting only 4 minutes) (Pitt, 1981, p.11). Wittgenstein’s answer to this question was always evolving, but its importance as a question remained steadfast. In the preface to the Tractatus, Wittgenstein claimed “to have found, on all essential points, the final solution of the problems” of philosophy. This is interesting not just for its audacity, but also for what it reveals about Wittgenstein’s early outlook in doing philosophy. Wittgenstein was ignorant of much of the philosophical canon, yet it is clear he considered there to be a distinct set of problems for philosophy. There was such a thing as the problems of philosophy. The Tractatus also defends a vision of the nature of philosophy: “Philosophy is not one of the natural sciences” (T:4.111), “Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity” (T:4.112), “Philosophy sets limits to the much disputed sphere of natural science” (T:4.113). The “correct” philosophical method is also described:

The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science … and then whenever 14

someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. (T:6.53)

This is a book intimately concerned with philosophy itself, and with a clear message regarding its problems, its nature and its method. The Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations shares in the Tractarian concern regarding the nature of philosophy, even if the relationship between the content of each period’s views is part of ongoing philosophical disputes. Wittgenstein anchors his Investigations with references to what happens when ‘doing philosophy’ (§11, §38, §81, §194, §261, §274, §303, §592, §598), what is ‘useful in philosophy’ (§15, §520), combined with comments on the nature of philosophy (§§89-133, §§254- 255, §309, §599). His thoughts are tied up with reference to how we act when doing philosophy, and how we should act in philosophy. This obvious concern for the philosophical enterprise makes it very clear that throughout his life Wittgenstein concerns himself among other things with describing, critiquing and attempting to change the philosophical enterprise. A reading of any of his works should take an understanding of his outlook on philosophy as a serious part of the book itself. It also deserves attention for the radical nature of its vision. As will be explored at length throughout this essay, the Investigations has a conception of philosophy that challenges many of the assumptions of Western philosophy and the tradition we find ourselves in. Such a challenge against philosophy’s self-conception, from a philosopher with such intellect and influence on the subject, requires proper treatment. It requires spending time to charitably understand the radical reorientation that Wittgenstein presents. These general considerations provide food for thought, but there is a stronger sense in which I want to argue that analysis of Wittgenstein’s conception and critique of philosophy is essential for a proper understanding of the book as a whole. The foundation of Wittgenstein’s thought in the Investigations is his metaphilosophical commitments, and this central importance means that we require an understanding of these aspects to fully come to terms with the rest of the book. We can draw out this stronger claim by responding to two potential interpretative approaches that undermine the importance of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical analysis. 15

The first is Rorty’s disregard for the “self-image” of Wittgenstein (2007, p.164). For Rorty, Wittgenstein’s “claim to be doing something radically different from what other philosophers do” (2007, p.164) can be ignored when addressing the content of the book. In other words, Wittgenstein’s claims to be adopting a novel philosophical method and operating from an alternative conception of philosophy can be ignored. His principal concern is Wittgenstein’s anti-representationalism, and according to Rorty, Wittgenstein’s “contribution to philosophy consists principally of the critique of ostensive definition, the private-language argument, and the rule-following argument” (Rorty, 2007, p.164). These ‘contributions’ are separated from his claims about philosophy itself, and the critique of philosophy is mutated into a Rortian argument against Lockean and Cartesian philosophical views. This relegates Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical insights to the periphery of the Investigations, making them not relevant to the arguments themselves. A less radical position is that there is a relationship between the philosophical and metaphilosophical doctrines of the Investigations, but it is one where priority is placed on the philosophical doctrines. In this scenario, the metaphilosophical insights fall out from a proper understanding of the doctrines of the book. Katz takes this kind of approach. For Katz, “Wittgenstein's arguments against theories of meaning in the first part of Philosophical Investigations pave the way for everything he says about philosophy, mind, logic, and mathematics in later parts of the book” (1990, p.7). As for the metaphilosophical doctrines, they can be accounted for as “largely applications of the account of meaning with which he replaces theories of meaning” (1990, p. 7). Again, Wittgenstein’s insights on philosophy are relegated in importance for understanding the book itself, and his critique is an expression of his theory of meaning. In response to both of these approaches, I want to maintain that they completely underestimate the importance of the metaphilosophical commitments and that their failure to do so leads to a failure to understand the discussions and arguments their approaches depend on.3 Priority should be restored to the metaphilosophical analysis. I want to demonstrate this by showing how different understandings of Wittgenstein’s thoughts on method and the nature of philosophical problems

3 For a similar defence for the priority of metaphilosophical insight for Wittgenstein see Horwich’s response to Katz (1994). 16 necessarily give rise to different understandings of the other doctrines within the book. This undermines the idea that the metaphilosophical insights are unimportant, or secondary. Central to the Investigations are ideas regarding the nature and source of philosophical problems. We can look at three different ways this has been taken (although there will obviously be more, this is enough for our purpose). Some take Wittgenstein to be addressing the traditional philosophical problems and proposing a defensible philosophical theory of meaning. Here, the nature of philosophical problems is as the tradition usually understands it, and thus the Investigations can be read as any other piece of analytic philosophy could be. 4 Secondly, the Investigations can be understood as proposing that philosophical problems arise out of misunderstandings, ‘prejudices’, and ‘myths’ that interfere with our correct understanding of the grammar of our language. Philosophical enquiry is grammatical (§90), false pictures hold us captive (§115), and we must remove philosophical problems by surveying our grammar. 5 Thirdly, therapeutic readers often take philosophical problems to be intellectually suffocating unconscious pictures and dogmas.6 Philosophical problems are to be therapeutically overcome to allow for intellectual freedom. Not by a survey of our grammar, but by loosening the grip of these suffocating pictures and dogmas. Here we have three different interpretations of the nature of philosophical problems in the Investigations, each with their own proponents. These we can call the metaphilosophical commitments of each understanding. But, from each of their separate understandings comes a completely different way to approach the totality of the work, and the ‘doctrines’ of the book, if there even are doctrines. Our understanding of Wittgenstein’s treatment of the mind, aesthetics, language, meaning, will be affected by the metaphilosophical commitments one has Wittgenstein making. The sections from which Katz draws a theory of meaning will be understood completely differently depending on your metaphilosophical outlook on the purpose of those sections, and how they operate within the text. Not only this, but these metaphilosophical

4 See G. Baker (1974). Baker is a very interesting case within these disputes, going through three different interpretations. 5 See Baker & Hacker (1980 & 1985). 6 See G. Baker (2006). 17 commitments do not presuppose understanding other aspects of the book. For example, a theory of meaning is not required to underpin Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical commitments. The nature of the topics will alter, and the method for dealing with them will change. A reader convinced of the first, analytic, approach, will understand the nature and method of Wittgenstein’s treatment of meaning very differently from someone who views Wittgenstein in line with the third, psychoanalytic, approach. It follows from this that a reading of the Investigations should ground itself in metaphilosophy if it wants to give a thorough and persuasive view of the text as a whole. As McGinn argues, the issue of Wittgenstein’s claim to do philosophy without theses is “the central interpretative issue for the whole of Wittgenstein’s philosophy” (2001, p.26). It should be the driving issue of an interpretation. Cora Diamond goes even further in claiming that “there is almost nothing in Wittgenstein which is of value and which can be grasped if it is pulled away from that view [i.e. the view Diamond attributes to Wittgenstein] of philosophy” (1991, p.179). This amounts to the claim that without a grounding in a metaphilosophical understanding, a therapeutic one for Diamond, then nothing of value can be gathered from the Investigations. This overplays the case and goes further than necessary. It should be qualified that anything understood ‘pulled away’ from a correct metaphilosophical understanding could be valuable, but it is not valuable as a reading of the text as a whole. This undermines the approaches of both Rorty and Katz. That is if they want a valuable reading as a whole (which they may not). They may be able to reach valuable insights in their own right, but this is separated from the valuable insights that the Investigations as a whole can provide us with. iii. Metaphilosophical philosophy? At this point, if metaphilosophy is central to the Investigations, it may strike one as a strange or unusual book. It may be difficult to see what it could possibly achieve, or difficult to see the importance of this kind of work. A brief overview of the importance of metaphilosophy for Nietzsche and Descartes should dispel this misconception. I intend to compare and contrast their insights with Wittgenstein. This will highlight the importance of metaphilosophy throughout philosophy while providing the opportunity for some derivative insight into Wittgenstein’s commitments. 18

There are of course difficulties with covering two of the most studied and influential philosophers within a limited space, however I hope this drawback is outweighed by the benefit of providing a framework from which we can delve into the ideas in the Investigations with greater clarity, and an improved understanding of the kind of ways we can begin to imagine the radical nature of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy. Uncertainty is at the root of all serious philosophical problems (ROC, §15), and we can reflect on the potential for radical alternatives to currently mainstream analytic philosophy by understanding these radical figures from the past. Leaving us open-minded about Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical programme. As I have highlighted, metaphilosophical insights can be connected to a deep critique of the philosophical culture that one finds oneself in. They also offer the potential for expressing alternative programmes. Both Descartes and Nietzsche exemplify this, although of course in different ways. Each can be seen as attempting to transform philosophy, and elements of their metaphilosophical critiques can be usefully compared with Wittgenstein’s. These references also serve to elaborate on some of the elements of metaphilosophy we discussed in the earlier sections. René Descartes is often referred to as the ‘father of modern philosophy’. One reason for this importance can be traced to his rejection of the philosophical tradition he found himself in, and his attempt to forge a new philosophy, conceiving of new methods and aims for the discipline. Descartes was educated by Jesuits in La Flèche, and his philosophical education was steeped in the scholastic tradition, mainly focused on the works of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Descartes considered the philosophy he was exposed to at La Flèche as “cultivated for many centuries by the best minds” but containing no “point that was not disputed and hence doubtful” (1985, Vol.I, p.115). Descartes’ studies in mathematics and the sciences greatly impressed on him the idea of a specific method for achieving knowledge, and that “all the things which come within the scope of human knowledge are interconnected in the same manner” as they are in a geometric proof (1985, Vol.I, p.116). Descartes was motivated by this to outline for philosophy the task of creating a unified system of knowledge whereby from simple natures (corporeal and intellectual) we build up reliable knowledge. Alongside this, Descartes challenged scholastic philosophy’s trust in the senses and cast doubt on the senses as a source for reliable knowledge. Instead, in his quest for the foundations of 19 knowledge, Descartes proposed a method of doubt whereby he would doubt anything that it was possible for him to doubt. This represents a total doubt, a total rejection of the past and custom, and a rejection of the senses. Descartes entrusted his method of doubt to strip away unreliable knowledge to determine only what is true, and from this lay the foundations for a system of knowledge. Descartes rejects the scholastic approach to philosophy, in doing so he develops new aims and a new method for philosophy gleaned from the natural sciences and mathematics. He is attempting to reorientate philosophy so as to make it a reliable source of knowledge, and this is critically linked to a novel conception of the true method of philosophy. In addition, this correction in philosophy comes with a distinct vision of the place of philosophy with regards to other disciplines. Descartes saw human knowledge as a tree, and the roots of this tree are composed of metaphysics, which in Descartes case has to do with epistemology and the foundations of knowledge. Then “the trunk is physics”, and “emerging from the trunk are all the other sciences” which Descartes reduces to “medicine, mechanics and morals” (Ariew, 1992, p.101). This ordering of the different ‘sciences’ dictates a foundational role for metaphysics. The problems of metaphysics must be set straight if the whole tree is to function successfully; an issue at the roots will decrease the health of the whole tree. Philosophy as having a foundational role is something that Wittgenstein rejects in the Investigations. Instead, Wittgenstein conceives of philosophy as appearing when something has gone astray when our language is not functioning correctly. The real philosophical discovery for Wittgenstein “is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to” (§133). Philosophy is not required to provide a foundation for other areas of human activity. Instead, only when a discourse has become problematic is philosophy needed, and philosophy is used to overcome the problem. Wittgenstein does not see philosophy as a “second-order activity at all” (Kenny, 1982, p.11), his earlier sardonic remarks on the importance of spelling the word ‘spelling’ to the activity of spelling can here be applied to having a theory of knowledge to gain knowledge. Descartes saw himself as a revolutionary: "Once in a lifetime we must demolish everything completely and start again right from the foundations'' (1985, Vol.II, p.12). He is heralded as a figure who changed the role of the philosopher for the Modern Age. 20

Scholastic philosophy saw the philosopher as responding to tradition, transmitting and harmonising a corpus of knowledge. The Cartesian philosopher doubts ancient wisdom; they are pioneers of their own vision. Kenny describes Descartes as “the first philosopher since Antiquity to offer himself as a total innovator; as the person who had the privilege of setting out the truth about man and his universe for the very first time” (2006, p.40). Here we can see a tension between the Cartesian philosopher and Wittgenstein’s idea of the role of philosophy. For Descartes, the philosopher is the total innovator, they are the speaker of truth, with special access to truth. They build up systems of indubitable truth. Instead, Wittgenstein’s attitude is that the philosopher, along with others, is stuck in philosophical illusion and dogma, and insists on bringing philosophy back to the everyday, searching for the rough ground. Philosophy is less of a search for indubitable truth, and “really more of a working on oneself” (CV, p.16). Wittgenstein’s distance from Descartes’ demolish-and-rebuild model for radical critique is important for understanding his relationship to philosophy. Descartes critique of tradition exemplifies an approach that is involved in two distinct tasks: deconstruction and construction. Wittgenstein’s radical reconceptualisation of philosophy as therapy has a more complicated relationship with philosophy as it exists; it relates less directly to specific ways of doing philosophy and is cautious not to present an exaggerated role for philosophy in the future. Crucial to this, and the differences between Descartes and Wittgenstein that have been explored, is understanding the importance of Wittgenstein’s understanding of what a philosophical problem is. Despite this, we can see that both Wittgenstein and Descartes heavily relied on metaphilosophical critique for innovation in philosophy. Both placed importance on understanding philosophy’s nature, and from this describing the correct method of philosophy.

If Descartes is the father, Nietzsche is closer to an illegitimate child, never quite comfortably positioned in or outside of philosophy. He was educated as a philologist, extremely critical of contemporary philosophy, and wrote in a style that was antithetical to systematic philosophy. Yet despite this, Nietzsche’s works are a goldmine of philosophical insight into metaphysics, ethics, and the mind. This uncomfortable relationship to philosophy makes him a suitable partner to Wittgenstein, although their 21 similarities usually only supply better lighting for their stark differences. The two figures have both a lot in common and stark differences. Nietzsche’s approach to philosophy and his understanding of its nature are fascinating, and briefly looking at some aspects will illuminate our investigation of Wittgenstein. The difficulty of approaching Nietzsche’s philosophy are well known. In part, this is due to the creative way in which he composes his works. Nietzsche’s work is rich in insight and novelty but often lacks the rigour and systematisation that we conventionally see in philosophy. Many of Nietzsche’s works consist of aphorisms that both individually, and collectively, do not straightforwardly present and defend arguments. His work is sometimes contradictory within a book, certainly between books.7 Nietzsche sometimes openly flaunted some of the criteria for a good piece of philosophy, embracing the consequences of misunderstanding: “One does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood” (2001, §381). This concern with the way philosophy is written, and a style that does not fit into the mould of traditional philosophy is obviously shared by the later Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein complains in the preface to the Investigations that he could achieve no more than philosophical remarks, as his “thoughts soon grew feeble if I tried to force them along a single track against their natural inclination” (Preface). The nature of the investigation “compels us to travel criss-cross in every direction” (Preface). Although Wittgenstein shows modesty where Nietzsche exerts self-confidence, both show an unwillingness to bend their thoughts into the traditional styles of philosophical writing. Their style indicates a mistrust of the current modes of thought and language of their day, and this attitude extends to the readers of their day. For both, the style and form of their writing are important to their methodology. This is just one expression of the way in which both comprehensively reject the contemporary philosophy around them, and view the tradition of philosophy, from Plato onwards, as besieged with mistakes, misapprehensions, and confusions. Both wanted to transform philosophy, and both saw philosophy as ill in some way, and in need of curing. This resulted in Nietzsche’s method of genealogy, a psychological and

7 Although of course part of this can be accorded to the development of his ideas and changes of mind. 22 historical study (quasi-historical?) of the origins of our belief system, morality and religion. Nietzsche sees the problems plaguing philosophy as deeply embedded in our culture and society, and he found the legacy of the Greeks extremely important. The genealogy attempted to show that some of our sets of beliefs, say in morality, don’t have a unitary source. To unearth the problems in philosophy, Nietzsche created this new method so as to undermine our belief systems, by displaying the origins and the motivations that lead to them. One instance of this critique is of the metaphysical systems of philosophers. For “to imagine another, more valuable world is an expression of hatred for a world that makes one suffer: the ressentiment of metaphysicians against actuality is here creative" (1967, §579). Nietzsche thought that metaphysicians crave “for frictionless surfaces, for a transcendental, pure, true, ideal, perfect world” (Turanli, p.62, 2003), because the world we live in is full of suffering. Here we see a deep criticism of the philosophical enterprise as Nietzsche saw it: philosophers unwilling to accept the world for what it is and instead creating the world they want to see. The theme of friction is uncannily reminiscent of Wittgenstein’s insistence on getting back to the rough ground: “We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground!” (§107). In a sense, both are struggling against philosophy, and a philosophical temptation to imagine a purer and more perfect world and striving to revert attention to the rough ground.8 They are also aligned in their use of the imagery of disease and illness to characterise the philosophical condition and the status of philosophical problems (See Wittgenstein §133 and §255). Meredith Williams demonstrates how Nietzsche and Wittgenstein’s use of this imagery depicts an understanding of philosophy whereby “the problem and the resources for solving the problem [are] wholly within the human sphere” (1988, p.404). Philosophical problems are caused and can be resolved by human thinking. This characterisation of the nature of philosophical problems highlights how both tried to change the way we think about the problems of philosophy, partly by introducing new philosophical methods, as with Nietzsche’s genealogy. But the similarity is balanced by differences. Nietzsche is concerned with sickness at a cultural and societal level. He is concerned with the “debilitating character of disease”

8 Think here of Wittgenstein’s criticisms of his Tractarian self in the Investigations (§23, §97,§114, §107). 23

(Williams, 1988, p.404), and the way it can limit the individual and the society. To overcome the debilitating effects of this cultural disease Nietzsche turns to “strength and weakness, health and sickness, what serves life and what denies life” (Williams, 1988, p.404). By contrast, Wittgenstein’s interest in philosophical problems partly stems from the confusion and disorientation they cause at the individual level, problems hold us captive (§115). Here illness can prevent us from moving forward, it undermines one’s ability to see things correctly and in the right light. Wittgenstein overcomes this by giving a mode of assessment in terms “of the normal and the abnormal” (Williams, 1988, p.405). He strives to cure our illness by returning us to our normal function, showing us the way out of our mental blockade (§309). These differences in emphasis dictate the tone of their work. Nietzsche is burning with rage and fury, firing off philosophical criticism like a burning flame, fighting against an entire culture. Wittgenstein is anxious and tormented, struggling for release from the philosophical torment he finds himself in, sometimes in the guise of a therapist and sometimes the patient. In the Investigations Wittgenstein claims that “the real discovery is the one that enables me to break off philosophizing when I want to” (§133). But elsewhere admits to Rhees that “[i]n my book I say that I am able to leave off with a problem in philosophy when I want to. But that’s a lie; I can’t”.9 Both of them attach importance in overcoming certain problems or illnesses caused by ‘philosophy’, both show an interest in moving away from metaphysics. This interest of Wittgenstein’s is emphasised in the therapeutic interpterion defended in the third chapter. Nietzsche metaphilosophical crusade is also illuminatingly related to the tensions surrounding metaphilosophical analysis from the first section. Nietzsche is much more critical of the whole enterprise of philosophy than Descartes and looks for ways to move beyond it to something different. For Descartes, the route to metaphilosophical critique was by destruction of the old ways of doing philosophy, followed by the construction of the new way to do philosophy. This will be referred to as the two task vision of metaphilosophy and will be linked to a picture of the Investigations that I look to undermine and overcome. Nietzsche poses a more radical

9 Quoted in Rhees [Citron ed] (2015, p.54). 24 alternative, partly by moving beyond the dichotomy of destruction and construction. It is possible to read Nietzsche as emphasising one task, that is neither merely just construction of deconstruction, but liberation from certain restricting tendencies in philosophy. His use of the imagery of disease is illuminating for this kind of liberating view of metaphilosophical critique. Here “what is wrong with philosophical prejudices is precisely that they restrict intellectual freedom; the liberation from dogma subserves no further goal” (Morris, 2007, p.75) and thus, there is only one task for philosophy. This one-task vision of metaphilosophy, whereby intellectual freedom is the only goal becomes a template for defending my alternative therapeutic view.10 iv. Going forward, a persuasive picture of the Investigations Thoughts advanced in this chapter will be used to illuminate the rest of the essay. These include the nature of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy as anti-foundation, how its form is important to its methodology, and the importance of understanding philosophical problems in the text. Central for my argument will be the idea that there is a persuasive picture of metaphilosophical critique, and how it affects interpretations of the Investigations. Metaphilosophical critique is commonly seen to involve two tasks, one positive and one negative, as we have seen. I think this common form of metaphilosophical critique plays a part in a dominating picture of the Investigations as having two separate aspects, linked in ways to the tasks usually seen in critique. As we will see there are different ways of accommodating the two aspects, and not all views conceptualise them as two different tasks. The most common view though, the elucidatory view, does however, try and accommodate two tasks, one positive and one negative. The form of metaphilosophy in Nietzsche and Descartes can be usefully used to draw out different ways of understanding the Investigations. The Cartesian view, of two tasks, is closer to this dominating picture of the text. Contrastingly, on one reading of Nietzsche, he offers a single task view of philosophy, and this form will illuminate the therapeutic views form. It overcomes the problems I highlight with the two aspect view’s interpretation of the Investigations by combining the two aspects under the unified goal of philosophical therapy. I turn now to the views in the literature.

10 See Morris (2007) for the connection between two-aspect and one-aspect conceptions of philosophy and interpreting Wittgenstein’s Investigations. 25

26

Chapter 2: A critique of the two task view of the Investigations This chapter has two, connected, central aims. The first is to draw attention to a dominating picture of the content of the Investigations whereby there are two aspects to be accommodated. The second is to argue that this picture fails to give a satisfactory and harmonious view of the Investigations. Throughout I adhere to the commitments laid out in the first section, taking the ‘metaphilosophical’ statements and positions seriously, and trying to drive an understanding of the work from first getting clear on its methodology and aims. When addressing views in literature I try to show how they fail to satisfactorily accord with all elements of the Investigations harmoniously with the aim of motivating exploring other ways of thinking about the Investigations. There are some that see a tension between viewpoints as integral to the importance of the work (see Fogelin, 1994, pp.205-222, and Stern, 2004). This is, to some extent, correct. The work includes dialogue and certainly involves the use of different viewpoints. The picture I am detailing here though, as will become clear, is one where there are different aspects of the Investigations, with different aims, one of which is positive, one of which is negative. I link this to the distinction made by Fogelin between Pyrrhonian and non-Pyrrhonian readings. There have been several different approaches to accommodating the two aspects, I will show how all of them are unsatisfactory. Ultimately, by highlighting the failure of this picture, I want to argue in the next chapter that we need to radically reconceive the workings of the Investigations, to remove this picture. In the final chapter, I defend a therapeutic view that harmonises these aspects into just one task, not two. As the proof will be in the pudding, for now, I merely want to explore and undermine the picture that determines there are two tasks and motivate a loosening of its grip, allowing space for a radically different approach. i. The two-aspects When exploring the Investigations conception of philosophy, and its methodology, a tempting picture of the way it is conducted presents itself. There appears to be two different elements or aspects at play in the work. On the one hand, there are the negative, destructive, sides to Wittgenstein’s philosophy, whereby he 27 extensively criticises traditional forms of philosophy. These aspects appear to describe a text that aims to undermine traditional philosophy and destroy the illusions that held up the subject. This leads Wittgenstein to questions himself: “Where does this investigation get its importance from, given that it seems only to destroy everything interesting: that is, all that is great and important? (As it were, all the buildings, leaving behind only bits of stone and rubble)” (§118). Contrastingly, there is the side of the Investigations that traverses all manner of philosophical topics and provides insight on them, conducting itself, and us, towards novel theories or ideas. The negative side of the Investigations is most notable in Wittgenstein’s pronouncement on what he thinks he is doing or his vision for how philosophy should operate. Infamously Wittgenstein rejects the notion of theories in philosophy and commits himself to philosophise without advancing any philosophical theories. If one did “it would never be possible to debate them, because everyone would agree to them” (§128). Instead, philosophy should consist “in marshalling recollections for a particular purpose” (§127), it “neither explains nor deduces anything” (§126). This is usually seen as a negative or destructive force because it undermines traditional ways of doing philosophy. Philosophy is traditionally seen as a subject which presents doctrines or theories about the way the world is, in a number of different senses. A theory, in a philosophical context, is a collection of philosophical assertions which claim truth and generality. This may be in morality, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics etc. Traditionally, we learn about philosophy through philosophers and the theories they assert and defend in a certain area that interests them. They present a theory that can be debated and argued for or against. Against this background, Wittgenstein’s claims seem radical and deeply negative. They seem to undermine the very foundations of philosophy and remove its ability to improve our understanding of the world. Wittgenstein believed that the “nimbus of philosophy had been lost” because of his “method of doing philosophy” (1980, p.21). As Conant explains, “what matters now is not the truth or falsity of any specific philosophical results but rather this all important fact: “a method had been found”” (2007, p.141). A method that does not advance philosophical theories. Wittgenstein even seems aware of the destructive power of the negative aspects of the Investigations, challenging the importance of his 28 method because “it seems only to destroy everything interesting: that is, all that is great and important?” (§118). Contrastingly, regardless of the commitments to a negative metaphilosophical outlook, the Investigations appears to contain plenty of novel insight and theories. Wittgenstein does seem to have interesting things to say in traditional areas of philosophy, appearing to make claims about meaning, mind, and scepticism to name but a few. Most famously, many take Wittgenstein to be committed to some kind of use-theory of meaning. Take §43: “For a large class of cases of the employment of the word “meaning” — though not for all — this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of the word is its use in the language”. We could also include here his comments on the possibility of a private language, his commitments to the nature of rule following, and his view of ‘game’ being a family resemblance concept. Straight away we get a sense of the potentially contradictory nature of Investigations by judging these positive commitments against the previous negative commitments. As we will see below this has inspired a number of different ways of accommodating the two seemingly contradictory aspects. This picture of the nature of the Investigations, as composed of two different parts or aspects that are somehow in tension has been one of the main driving forces of novel and interesting interpretations of exactly what is going on in the Investigations. Wright comments that:

It is difficult to reconcile Wittgenstein's pronouncements about the kind of thing which he thinks he ought to be doing with what he actually seems to do. Not that his actual treatment of the particular issues seems flatly inconsistent with his general methodological ideas. Rather, we can put the would-be interpreter's difficulty like this: it is doubtful how anyone who read only a bowdlerised edition of the Investigations, from which all reference to philosophical method and the nature and place of philosophy had been removed, would be able to arrive at the conclusion that the author viewed these matters in just the way in which Wittgenstein professes to do. (1980, 262)

The two elements do not naturally fit, and this means one must provide a novel way of thinking about the Investigations. The stated metaphilosophical aspects of the work do not naturally describe the very philosophical investigation that Wittgenstein undertakes. 29

Kenny conceives of the two elements I’m portraying as in tension: “though I have tried my best to do so I do not believe that it is, in the end, possible to reconcile Wittgenstein’s account of philosophy with the entirety of his philosophical activity in the Investigations” (2004, p.181). For Pears, this tension is what defines the greatness of the book: “each of the two forces without the other would have produced results of much less interest… But together they produced something truly great” (1986, pp.197-198). Each in their own way responds to the tension between the two different aspects, and it is something that is widespread in approaching the Investigations. This distinction between two elements has an interesting spin in Fogelin’s distinction between Pyrrhonian and non-Pyrrhonian readings of Wittgenstein’s philosophy. Fogelin argues that both Pyrrhonian and non-Pyrrhonian “commitments play important roles” within Wittgenstein’s later work and the Investigations (1994, p.205). This represents a “conflict between doing philosophy and doing away with it” (1994, p.205). The non-Pyrrhonian readers, most notably Hacker (discussed below), take the Investigations to have dual aims. It is critical of philosophy as it is traditionally done, combined with implementing a new way of doing philosophy. They are ‘non- Pyrrhonian’ because although they see Wittgenstein as critical of traditional ways of doing philosophy, they do not see him as completely sceptical of philosophy. Instead, they believe he tries to present his own positive vision of philosophy. This kind of view integrates the constructive and destructive elements by presenting the Investigations as made up of a constructive and destructive task. Contrastingly there are the Pyrrhonian readers who emphasise the sceptical commitments towards philosophy in the Investigations. They see Wittgenstein as attempting to undermine all traditional philosophy without trying to replace it. Wittgenstein from this perspective wants to do away with philosophy, certainly the current western analytic style of philosophy. The Pyrrhonian reading has been closely associated with the therapeutic view. Categorising interpretations according to their stance on the positive and negative aspects is a useful tool for drawing out fundamental differences between them. I will now address a number of interpretations and how they attempt to accommodate the two aspects. 30

This picture of different aspects of the work is my way of viewing the literature, and how it deals with the metaphilosophical commitments of the Investigations. The tension one feels on reading the book is caused by two competing aspects, each with their own aims, and this leads to a picture whereby either one side or another is minimised, they are harmonised, or the book is left in tension. I consistently reject distorting or undermining one side, highlight the failure of harmonisation, and reject leaving the book in tension. Ultimately, this is to reject the dominating picture of two- aspect and open up space for a radical change in understanding the Investigations. ii. Accommodating the two-aspects

Analytic/constructive/theory views: One approach to this interpretative issue has been to emphasize the positive aspects of the Investigations, and in doing so present a more consistent and linear argument within the book. This is at the expensive of the negative aspects. This can vary from seeing Wittgenstein as straightforwardly an analytic thinker to believing that behind the unclarity we can dig towards a more traditional kind of philosophical doctrine. As I will show, to achieve this, the interpretation has to ignore, distort, or undermine the negative aspects of the book that tend to push for a philosophy that does not present theories. I will look at Rorty, the early Baker, Hilmy, Pitcher and von Savigny for a range of perspectives on how to remove the tension by promoting the positive elements of the book. I will present some of the textual difficulties present in the Investigations that undermine the impetus for a constructive reading. One representative of this kind of view is Baker’s early work, before his collaboration with Hacker. In ‘Criteria: A New Foundation for Semantics’ and ‘Defeasibility and Meaning’ Baker argues for a novel theory of meaning to be found in the Investigations, one that improves on the Tractatus picture theory of meaning. For Baker, regarding the Investigations, “it cannot be mistaken in principle to try to fit Wittgenstein’s remarks together into a philosophical system” (1979, p.245). This means that Wittgenstein should be treated as comparable to traditional analytic thinkers, and one should approach the Investigations trying to find a ‘philosophical system’. Finding a version of a use-theory of meaning is one of the most common ‘theories’ that has been 31 credited to Wittgenstein in the Investigations. Implicitly or explicitly this includes Alston (1964), Apel (1980, Ch.1), Davies (2003), Habermas (1995, p.58, pp.62–64), Horwich (1995) and others. From here though we are left with the puzzle of the negative aspects of the Investigations; to re-iterate, these are the bits expressing a conception of philosophy as absent of theories. We can get a sense of the worry initially from considering the most important section for a use-theory of meaning.

For a large class of cases of the employment of the word “meaning” — though not for all — this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. (§43).

Notice the qualification made by Wittgenstein, this definition is ‘for a large class of cases – though not for all’. In talking only of a large number of cases, it undermines this supporting a full-blown theory on meaning. This further enhances the case that there are aspects to the way in which the Investigations is written that are inimical to only endorsing a positive conception of the work. However, there have been a number of strategies employed to overcome these kinds of textual worries that undermine the positive aspects. One is to take the negative aspects of the Investigations to be stylistic quirks of the work. Yes, Wittgenstein might say ‘for a large class of cases’, but in reality, this is nothing more than a rhetorical style. In the words of Baker, it ‘cannot be mistaken in principle’ to try and reconstruct the work so as to determine the philosophical system that it is actually trying to make, beyond the misleading expression of his thoughts. This argumentative strategy of explaining away non-conducive passages can extend to lots of different elements of the work. Take Wittgenstein’s use of ‘superstition’ (p.18n, §110) or ‘prejudice’ (§108, §340) to describe the ‘grammatical illusions’ he seems to be undermining. This is language not at all common to traditional philosophical theorising, which may lead one to question the works status as straightforwardly presenting philosophical theories. One explanation of these passages would be to dismiss them as rhetorical quirks. This would entail that, despite the expressive language, the illusions are nothing more than philosophical positions that Wittgenstein is trying to 32 demonstrate to be wrong, certainly not something more akin to superstitions or prejudices. This strategy seems rather unconvincing. Especially when we consider the more straightforward expressions of the negative aspects of the work. Wittgenstein’s claim in §126 that philosophy “simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything” cannot be reduced to a stylistic quirk. As I have made clear, Wittgenstein is deeply interested in thinking about the nature of philosophy and philosophical method. To assume that his talk of introducing a new philosophical method can be ignored seems a very limited way to attempt to interpret the work. Wittgenstein wanted his “philosophy to be business-like, to get something done, to get something settled” (quoted by Drury, 1981, p.126). It is unlikely Wittgenstein was trying to dilute his positive commitments by misleading his readers with literary quirks and dead ends. Undermining the negative aspects is widespread though, and there are some more sophisticated arguments for it than reducing them to stylistic quirks. Stephen Hilmy has argued that if the book appears to be non-linear and appears not to concretely argue for a position in a more traditional fashion, then this is because of an “incapability” from Wittgenstein (1987, pp.15-17). This puts the responsibility on Wittgenstein that he was unable to conduct his Investigations in a more linear fashion. He is at fault for not presenting his positive philosophical more straightforwardly. If this is the case, the correct response would be an attempt to reconstruct the arguments that Wittgenstein was ‘incapable’ of making more systematic. In a similar vein, Pitcher argues that “when Wittgenstein says… that there are no philosophical theses or theories, he is overstating his case… He does not mean certain statements about language and meaning; for about these, he himself most certainly puts forward theses…” (1964, p.323). Pitcher argues that contrary to Wittgenstein, there are philosophical theories in the Investigations, and not everyone would accept them (see §126, §127 and §128 for contrast). Here the claim is that Wittgenstein is exaggerating his case. Although he might claim to be presenting no theses or theories, in actual fact, he does do this. Wittgenstein contradicts himself within the Investigations. 33

One further way the constructive view has been defended is to argue that not only is the Investigations a book which is best read as presenting arguments and theories, but that “the book is meant and designed by the author to do so, though it is disturbed by certain stylistic features and does not always proceed in a systematic, linear, and thus, theory-apt way” (von Savigny quoted in Pichler, 2007, p.125). This is a position held by von Savigny, who is also a dissenting voice in arguing that there is no chapter on philosophy in the Investigations (1991). These arguments together aim to undermine the importance of metaphilosophy for understanding the Investigations, argue that the book can be more straightforwardly read as a constructive piece of philosophy, and show that this is the way it was intended by Wittgenstein (von Savigny, 1991). Here we have seen various ways of construing the Investigations constructively, all of which distort or undermine the destructive, negative, aspects of the work, although they do so in different ways. These approaches I have combined together as analytic, or constructive, views because what links them together is the idea that Wittgenstein presented theories in the Investigations, despite the negative aspects of the text that seem to undermine this. Although they want to endorse the positive aspects, they still remain within the picture of the Investigations I have been drawing out because they must respond to the negative aspects I have indicated. In the first chapter of this essay, I stressed how I was looking to take the metaphilosophical commitments seriously, and how we should come to an understanding of these aspects to properly understand the rest of the work. The constructive view reverses this kind of logic and wants to downplay these bits of the work. I hope to have already convinced the reader of my approach; however, I want to provide some further evidence of the textual difficulties inherent to the Investigations that present evidence for a therapeutic view over a constructive view.

Skandalon: A pressing problem for the constructive view is the textual feel of much of the Investigations, even the passages it is most profitable to take as constructive bits of philosophy. It involves ambiguity, questions, tensions, difficulties and surprising content that make it difficult to read as straightforwardly linear and theory-like. These 34 are difficulties not only with understanding the structure of the book but also within specific passages. Pichler calls these elements skandalon after the Greek for stumbling block (2007, p.127). We can consider the first few passages of the Investigations as a case in point. Firstly, in §1, we have the ambiguous use of a passage quoted from Augustine, where Wittgenstein does not make it entirely clear what he is objecting to. This is followed by an odd description of a shopping trip to buy apples. Wittgenstein’s characterisation of Augustine’s “particular picture of the essence of human language” (§1) never gives clear indication whether it is meant to be considered as an explicit target, to what extent it should be considered a complete theory of meaning, or whether it should be connected to the work of Frege and Russell. Cavell has discussed how we are left pondering why Augustine’s account is even philosophically significant, it is a puzzling place to begin a philosophy book, as if “one does not know, in advance, where philosophy might begin, when one's mind may be stopped, to think” (Cavell, 1996, p.265). The Augustine passage is translated by Wittgenstein, which in several ways is less than accurate. It “misrepresents the original Latin on important points, for example, by strongly attending to names, a focus which was much less present in the original Latin” (Pichler, 2004, p.128). Schulte has shown that there are layers of irony and meaning in Wittgenstein’s use of the German word ‘primitiv’ (2004, pp.24-26) in §2 of the Investigations. Not only this, but this layer of irony is introduced after the manuscripts, in which this and similar passages use the word ‘einfach’ (‘simple’) instead. This change “serves no purpose whatever except for injecting new shades of meaning which… can serve to bring in irony as well as other preponderantly stylistic nuances” (Schulte, 2004, pp.26). All of these together compound the idea that the book has a lot of elements that frustrate a straightforward constructive reading. This is because the constructive view does not provide a convincing explanation for the purpose or rationale of these aspects of the work. The problem then remains though, how to integrate them into an understanding of the text. I think Beth Savickey has the right approach when considering the use of questions in the Investigations: 35

“He [Wittgenstein] does not ask or answer conventional philosophical questions and it is often difficult to know how to respond to his questions. (It is often difficult to know what kind of response his questions require.) Kenny observes that ‘the Investigations contain 784 questions. Only 110 of these are answered; and seventy of the answers are meant to be wrong’ (Kenny, 1973, p.20). This observation is significant if read methodologically. The pervasive use of questions, as well as the absence of what Kenny would identify or acknowledge as conventional philosophical answers (or correct answers) highlights this grammatical technique. Rather than dismiss Wittgenstein’s questions as unanswered (following Kenny) we need to investigate their role in his philosophical… practice” (Savickey, 1999, p.131).

Savickey identifies Wittgenstein’s use of questions as a skandalon, as a stumbling block to a constructive interpretation of the Investigations. But rather than ignore or dismiss them (as I have shown various writers do to other aspects of the Investigations) they can be better understood if we try and understand them methodologically. This means trying to understand the role questions play in the text, and their role in Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy. This is why these textual difficulties present such a problem for constructive views because they do not have anything plausible to say about their methodological role within the text. They can ignore these aspects, see them as faults of Wittgenstein in his attempt to actually put forward a linear argument towards a theory, or distort them so that they are part of an argument. However, all else being equal, it stands as an improved reading if the ambiguities, tensions, questions and difficulties that plague a constructive view can be better accommodated. In fact, these textual difficulties can become the most persuasive support for a therapeutic reading. The therapeutic view is able to methodologically integrate these aspects with Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy. This kind of view was pioneered by Cavell (1976, ch.2), and is observed in later Baker’s interpretation, something I will explore in the next chapter.

The non-Pyrrhonian / Elucidatory view After rejecting the constructive approach to the dilemma, I now want to consider an alternative. This is classified as the non-Pyrrhonian view, but elsewhere (and in this essay) as the ‘elucidatory’ view. Instead of raising the status of one aspect of the Investigations, it attempts to reconcile them both, while maintaining a coherent position. 36

The most convincing defence of this is the very influential analysis, spanning a number of different publications, by Baker and Hacker (more recently Hacker alone). Most notably in their monumental study of the Investigations (2005). Despite being formulated jointly, from around 1986 onwards Baker went on to forge a radically different view of the Investigations, one that I explore in the next section (see Morris, 2007, pp.67-68). As Hacker has continued to endorse this view, I will refer to it as the Hacker view for ease (see his 2007 elucidatory response to Baker’s new view). Hacker’s approach has been very influential. Part of its success is its attempt to do justice to each aspect of the book I have identified, allowing them both to play a role without undermining the status of either. It is non-Pyrrhonian because it identifies Wittgenstein’s thought as critical of traditional ways of doing philosophy and is an attempt to provide an alternative. Hacker’s view deserves close attention, and I will spend some time dealing with his views on the Investigations. Particular attention is played to his conception of a perspicuous representation from §122, and this will be used to compare and contrast with the therapeutic view I go on to endorse. Lastly, I will provide criticisms of this view, which again will motivate exploring an alternative approach. Hacker sees the “disintegration of the Tractatus philosophy between 1929 and 1931” to lead to a new emerging method in Wittgenstein’s philosophy (2005, p.273). Operating with the distinction I have been drawing, Hacker details two conceptions of how Wittgenstein saw his new philosophy. On one side, he was the “destroyer of the great tradition of Western philosophy”, leading to the “destruction of the deepest ideas that informed the Tractatus” (2005, p.273). On the other hand, Wittgenstein was also creating a new method which would represent a “kink in the development of human thought” (2005, p.273). Connected with this vision of its relationship with the history of philosophy, is the dual aims of the Investigations. Hacker sees the aims of philosophy for Wittgenstein to be characterised “both positively and negatively” (2005, p.284), These are linked to the two conceptions above. First, I want to characterise philosophical problems for Hacker’s Wittgenstein, and then go into further detail of the negative and positive aspects of the aims of the Investigations.

Philosophical problems: 37

For Hacker’s Wittgenstein philosophical problems are conceptual problems. They are problems that rest on misunderstandings – “conceptual misunderstandings” (2005, p.277). Crucially, philosophy is seen as an exercise in tackling these misunderstandings, they are in need of “patient unravelling” (ibid). Hacker then lists a number of different sources for these philosophical problems. The most important source of problems “is the misleading features of the grammar of our language” (ibid). There are a number of these. Expressions with different uses can deceptively appear similar: “‘to have a house’ looks like ‘to have a mind’, but the former signifies a form of ownership, whereas the latter does not” (ibid). Equally, sometimes sentences that appear wildly different do in fact have the same use. Confusion sometimes derives from “our failure to notice that although a fragment of one language-game may be analogous to that of another, nevertheless the two are not homologous” (2005, p.278). We may be certain that a linesman made a mistake, or certain that a triangle must have three sides, or certain that you feel happy, or certain that you’re going to make beans on toast for lunch. For Wittgenstein, although these may appear to all be the same kind of certainty, with different degrees, in fact, there are different kinds of certainty with “different kinds of consequences” (2005, p.278). Moreover, there are persuasive pictures that are embedded in our language which are “endlessly misleading” (2005, p.279). For example, if we ‘lose our marbles’, there is no point actually going out and looking for your marbles. Pictures cloud our understanding of the grammar. Hacker also argues that philosophical problems can arise from our culture, and from our “own nature” (2005, p.282). As a culture, we are inexhaustibly tempted to attempt to “ask and answer” philosophical questions in the way that science does. Looking to construct theories, and give explanations of phenomena, providing analysis. Instead, for Wittgenstein, in philosophy we have all the information we need, and we don’t need theories we need an overview of our language. Our human nature can also lead us philosophically astray. We have a craving for myth-building, we seek necessities, and desire unity and generality. All of these can lead us towards conceptual confusion, away from a clear overview of our grammar. This perception of the nature of philosophical problems leads Hacker to identify two distinct tasks for philosophy. One 38 is the negative task to “disentangle conceptual confusions, to destroy metaphysical illusions”, to rid people of their prejudices and misleading pictures (2005, p.284). The other is the positive task that aims to “attain an overview of a conceptual field” and give us a perspicuous representation of the grammar of our language (ibid). I will turn to each of these now. Intellectual therapy: Hacker argues that one aspect, or aim, of the Investigations is negative, and is best metaphorically characterized as therapeutic. The negative task is to remove certain misperceptions and illusions that people suffer from, thus overcoming the philosophical problems as detailed in the previous section. Hacker quotes approvingly Wittgenstein’s analysis of treating what mathematicians say about objectivity and reality as “something for philosophical treatment” (§254). The “philosopher treats a question; like an illness” (§255). The different methods in philosophy are seen as different therapies (§133), where a slow cure is all-important (Z §382) (See Hacker, 2005, p.285). This use of the imagery of illness and therapy leads Hacker to positively endorse some of the connections between philosophy and therapy for Wittgenstein. Philosophy does aim to treat people, and this does have strong similarities to psychoanalysis. Wittgenstein is trying to draw attention to latent nonsense and make it patent nonsense (§119, §464). However, Hacker is keen to draw limits on the usefulness on the analogy, “it is only an analogy” (ibid). The most fundamental difference, for Hacker, is that the Investigations is aimed at understanding, and not health at all. Wittgenstein’s method for resolution has “rational validity” and is not subject to the patient approval of it as a solution. There are arguments “which remind us how we use words”, which use various methods to “highlight grammatical features we overlooked” (2005, p.286). This leads us to the positive aspects.

Conceptual geography §122: Alongside the negative task of intellectual therapy, there is also a positive task. Wittgenstein’s philosophy “aims to attain an overview of a conceptual field, to arrange grammatical data so that the manifold relationships become perspicuous” (2005, p.284). Thus, the task of philosophy is to describe our grammar correctly, to remind us 39 of the correct uses of problematic expressions, “characterizing combinations of words that are excluded from the language” (2005, p.284). Wittgenstein “painstakingly” traces “conceptual connections that we are all too prone to overlook” (2001, p.37). At §122 Wittgenstein claims that “the concept of a perspicuous representation is of fundamental significance for us” and it is the crux of Hacker’s analysis of the positive task of the Investigations. Hacker regards it as the hallmark of Wittgenstein’s method. For Hacker a perspicuous representation is an attempt to achieve an overview of the use of an expression, and in doing so take in “its manifold grammatical connections with related concepts, as well as the differences between it and concepts with which it is liable to be confounded” (2005, p.309). One is reminded of the correct uses of an expression, of its combinatorial possibilities, and this provides the ability to ‘know your way around’ (see §123). Providing perspicuous representations eschews explanation and hypothesis, instead, they rely on description and overview: “we want to understand something that is already in plain view” (§89). To be sure, Wittgenstein is said to “offer us the correct way of viewing things… faithful to the grammar of the problematic expressions under consideration” making philosophical nonsense evident (2005, p.323). This means that a surveyable representation not only makes philosophical nonsense evident, but also provides a correct description of our grammar. Hacker claims that a surveyable representation can be taken two ways: narrowly and broadly (2005, p.332). Narrowly, a surveyable representation can be a limited number of carefully selected grammatical propositions that are used to dislodge a specific illusion or myth. Broadly, a surveyable representation is a “synopsis” of all the “grammatical rules for the use of an expression” (ibid). It is noted that in the Investigations there appears to be passages which attempt the former, but none that attempt the latter, Hacker puts this down to Wittgenstein’s propensity to “dash down the side-streets” of muddled thinking, many of which seem to be ones he had gone down before himself (2005, p.334). The Investigations is after all “a number a sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of… long and involved journeyings” (PI, Preface). Running throughout Hacker’s conception of a perspicuous representation is the metaphor of mapping out a territory. Wittgenstein’s work offers the ‘judicious cartographer’ plenty of resources to map out the grammar of certain expressions. 40

Hacker’s representations are of what actually is, presenting us with the actual grammar of our expressions and using this to guide us away from myth and illusion.

Two-stage philosophy and the non-Pyrrhonian: Hacker is the torchbearer for the elucidatory view, which has become the view closest to a ‘standard’ way of reading the text. The reading is also associated with Kenny (1982, 1984) and Glock (2001). A unifying feature of these views is the way in which they respond to the picture that I have detailed about the Investigations. If one is convinced that there are two separate aspects, with different aims, in the text, then one way to accommodate them both is to argue for there being two distinct tasks. This is the elucidatory approach. There is the negative task of intellectual therapy, intimately associated with Wittgenstein’s methodological remarks. This is complemented with a positive task. As Hacker describes it:

However, despite his own pronouncements, Wittgenstein's philosophy also has a complementary constructive aspect to it, which he himself acknowledged. Side by side with his demolition of philosophical illusion in logic, mathematics, and philosophy of psychology, he gives us numerous overviews of the logical grammar of problematic concepts, painstakingly tracing conceptual connections that we are all too prone to overlook. (2001, p.37)

The constructive task is the conceptual geography and perspicuous representations discussed above. The therapeutic and positive tasks coexist as two separate tasks in the Investigations. This also makes the view non-Pyrrhonian. Although there is plenty of criticism of traditional philosophical methods, this supplanted with a new vision of philosophical practice. What is crucial about the view is the clear distinction between two tasks. Katherine Morris has described this as a ‘two philosophical task view’, for its negative and positive aspects, and linked in her essay with the practice of Merleau-Ponty (2007). This can also be linked to my description of Descartes in the first chapter. Whereby Descartes aimed to criticise traditional philosophy while also describing a new philosophical method. Hacker describes the relationship between the two tasks as hierarchical: the “positive aims are subservient to the negative ones” (2005, p.284). The sense of 41

‘subservient’ here is that the perspicuous representations are used to bring about the intellectual therapy. The positive aims are used to bring about the negative aims. They deferentially are used to achieve the understanding required to remove misunderstandings. Hacker’s use of ‘subservient’ is slightly misleading here though, because Hacker also argues that the positive aims must also have validity as aims in themselves. This is because, for Hacker, it is not just any kind of perspicuous representation that Wittgenstein wants to use to remove intellectual misunderstanding, they must be accurate and map how we actually use ordinary language. This means that they are not subservient in the sense that they can be totally subsumed as part of the negative aim, they have their own independent motivation. I labour this point because I want to make it a crucial point of contention between the elucidatory reading and the therapeutic reading. A crucial insight from Baker’s work on the therapeutic view is to see the Investigations as having solely the therapeutic aims. This allows us to avoid claiming that Wittgenstein was going against ‘his own pronouncements’.

Problems with the Elucidatory view: I want to present some reasons to be sceptical of the elucidatory interpretation and its attempt to produce harmony between positive and negative aspects of the Investigations. I shall argue that it is an unsatisfactory reading of the text as a whole. There are two prongs to this argument. Either the constructive aim of the reading is in conflict with the therapeutic aim, and this tension undermines its success as an interpretation, or it fails to motivate the constructive aim as a separate aim of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and thus it collapses into the therapeutic task, and becomes completely subservient to it. This leaves only the therapeutic task. Either way, this undermines the two philosophical task interpretation. I will use Hacker’s interpretation to discuss my misgivings but take it to apply to other similar views. In Hacker’s interpretation of §122, regarding perspicuous representation, he unwittingly commits Wittgenstein to substantive positions beyond his stated therapeutic commitments. The other side of this criticism is that rejecting the status of Hacker’s positive task we are led to subsuming it under the therapeutic aim. To begin my assessment, I want to make a distinction between two different senses of the word ‘description’ at play in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, which highlight 42 an easily missed ambiguity in the term (see Kuusela, 2008, pp.114-116). Consider the sentence ‘this is one metre long’. In a normal use of this sentence we could use it as a description of an object’s length, say a rug: ‘this rug is one metre long’. It would be a contingent statement that will be either true or false depending on the world. The rug may indeed be 1 metre long and this sentence would be true, or it isn’t, and it is false. A different case would be if this sentence was used to describe the very thing that determines the length of a metre, something like the standard metre stick in Paris (§50). In this case, as this object determines what it is to be one metre long, it cannot be said to describe a contingent fact that could be true or false. The sentence is constitutive of what it is to be 1 metre long, it establishes what is 1 metre long. When we call this object 1 metre long what we mean to do is to describe a rule, to describe what it is for something to be one metre long. The “definition determines the meaning of” metre (Kuusela, 2008, p.114). This distinction is supported by Hacker: “There is a sharp distinction between using a (token) sentence to express a rule of grammar and using one to state a fact” (1986, p.196). What is confusing is that the same sentence can function as the description of a fact or the description of a rule. To re-iterate, in one description we make a true or false claim about an object, the other the description serves to “define an object’s discourse, making possible certain kinds of true/false statements” (1986, p.114). Again, as also Hacker notes, the two uses are seperate. We can now use this distinction to bear on the status of Hacker’s perspicuous representations, and his descriptions of grammar, used to map the use of certain expressions. Hacker claims that when providing an overview of the grammar of expression we are trying to describe the rules of our grammar, and not trying to state facts. This is how the elucidatory view maintains coherence with Wittgenstein’s claim to only be describing and not to be presenting any novel theories or explanations. Take Wittgenstein’s claims that:

“For a large class of cases of the employment of the word “meaning” — though not for all — this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.” (§43)

When Wittgenstein is charting our use of the word meaning and trying to give us a description of the grammar of the expression, he is trying to express a rule of grammar. 43

This is distinguished as a description of a rule of grammar, not describing a fact. For Hacker, the status of this description is not to state an empirical fact, true or false, about the meaning of a word. Instead, it traces the ‘conceptual connections’ of our uses of the word ‘meaning’, mapping out our use of the expression. It highlights the rules of our grammar. Hacker describes this status as such: “the descriptions are rules we actually employ as standards for the correct use of expressions” (1986, p.161). For them to play the role they are required to do they must be descriptive of the rules of grammar, the constitutive sense in which they determine what it is to use that expression. They are ‘standards for the correct use of expressions’. However, they must also be descriptive of how language is actually used, ‘rules we actually employ’. They are reminders of “how we use a given problematic expression” (Hacker, 2005, p.285). As these descriptions can’t be descriptions of fact for Hacker, it now becomes problematic to explain how they describe actual usage of expressions. This is because a constitutive description doesn’t necessarily imply that it is actually used in that way. We may describe the rules of an imaginary game, constitutively setting up the parameters of play, but this does not entail that anyone actually plays this game. Just as we can constitutively describe the rug as the measurement for 1 metre, without entailing that anyone uses it this way. Kuusela argues that for Hacker’s statements to achieve the status of describing how our language is actually used they must describe how language must be used. The description of our grammar states the boundaries beyond which one deviates “from its actual and normal use” (2008, p.117). It means that an expression must be used in the way which the rule states because that is how language is. This is a non-person specific and non-context specific account of the nature of language, used to show us the correct grammar of ‘problematic’ expressions. This criticism clearly doesn’t apply to Hacker’s view. Hacker does not claim that a perspicuous representation of a problematic expression has to be exactly right and demonstrate how something must be used. For Hacker, a good map does not detail every aspect of a given expressions use, instead, it is meant to be a useful representation. For Wittgenstein a “philosophical problem has the form: "I don't know my way about".” (§123), and the representation is there to help us find our way about. Hutto uses the tube map as an example of the kind of map that does not accurately depict all aspects of its terrain but is useful precisely because it does 44 not do so (Hutto, 2007, p.301). The tube map does not accurately depict the distance between stations, nor does it accurately represent the direction of the train lines between the stations. Instead, it shows the “‘relevant connections’ in a single surveyable design” (ibid). This undermines the criticism that Hacker’s view relies on a direct realism of mapping, of a must, of the kind that Kuusela finds problematic. Despite this, there is still something problematic about the surveyable representations claimed to be describing the actual usage of our language and to be describing the “bounds of sense” of our expressions (2005, p.285). It can be criticised for attempting to achieve a ‘view from nowhere’ whereby language is comprehended from a vantage point outside it. John McDowell calls this trying to “view language from sideways on” (1999, p.44). This is because Hacker’s view, by looking for an overview of our grammar, implies that there is something which is there to be overviewed. It requires us to be able to view how our grammar is. This ‘grammar’ must be a surveyable entity if the elucidatory task is to be given its motivation, beyond merely achieving a therapeutic task. If there is an independent elucidatory task, then it only achieves this status by implying that it is possible to survey grammar. Thus, taking a view from outside it, and being able to survey it. This is even despite Hutto’s response to Kuusela. Hutto’s response shows that Hacker’s representations don’t have to be designed as simply being realistic representations of our language. But my criticism is now levelled at the status of the representations claiming to successfully represents something, our ‘language’ or our ‘grammar’. This is a serious flaw for Hacker’s view. It means it is committed to being able to survey our grammar because it must be of a “discernible form that is static enough (i.e., not fluid or in flux) for us to survey and map according to certain criteria (Hutchinson, 2007, p.699). It is committed to there being a body of rules of our grammar ‘static enough’ from which survey. Despite the detail of this criticism applying only to Hacker’s given elucidatory aim, the form of it highlights a general problem for elucidatory views. This is because it is an exemplary example whereby a constructive task is conflicted by the negative task. It leads to the therapeutic criticism that any separate constructive task will always either contradict the negative task, or collapse into it. If the constructive task is given its own motivation, separate from the end goal of philosophical therapy, then there 45 must be a justification for its continuing relevance. But this will always be problematic against the negative aspects of the Investigations. For “if clarification per se is a goal, then it presupposes a particular view of how language must be. In clarifying language in this way Wittgenstein is taken to dissolve philosophical problems by showing us (clarifying, perspicuously representing to us) the rules of our grammar (linguistic facts)” (Hutchinson, p.700). But this is a ‘performative contradiction’ against the metaphilosophical remarks, as shown above in the criticism of Hacker’s interpretation of perspicuous representations. A separate constructive task will entail a performative contradiction with the books therapeutic aim. Alternatively, the constructive tasks can be motivated by the therapeutic goals of the text. However, then the elucidations are person-relative and are the therapy. In this case, there is only one philosophical task, not two, and the view collapses into the radically therapeutic view I endorse in the next chapter. These represent two horns of a dilemma, whereby the elucidatory view either independently motivates the positive tasks but contradicts the negative aspects or motivates it by the therapeutic goals of the text but fails to distinguish it from pure therapy.

Failure of the elucidatory views: Ultimately what is shown by the failure of elucidatory interpretation of the method and conception of philosophy in the Investigations is that trying to harmonise the two aspects of the work is bound to fail. An appreciation of the negative commitments means that there is no space for constructive aspects of the book, as they are both currently understood. What is left of the view, if you still believe that it is correct to see two separate aspects of the book that must both be at play, is a book that conflicts with itself. There is a tension in its aims that means that it pulls against itself, and we don’t know which bits of it to prioritise over others. There remains the option of accepting that the book is in tension. This response is something that Kenny comes closest to endorsing. For example: “though I have tried my best to do so I do not believe that it is, in the end, possible to reconcile Wittgenstein’s account of philosophy with the entirety of his philosophical activity in the Investigations” (Kenny, 2004, p.181). However, this seems like a response of last resort. It is an interpretative position that 46 motivates searching for a more coherent understanding of the whole text. It is difficult to accept that the book is in tension and may even be contradictory.

The Pyrrhonian / ‘Therapeutic’ The last strategy in response to the two aspects of the Investigations is the Pyrrhonian, anti-philosophical, ‘therapeutic’ understanding of the Investigations. This view navigates the interpretative issue by emphasising the negative aspect and the work is understood as undermining any philosophy at all. There are no philosophical theories or systems, and the Investigations seeks to end doing any philosophy at all. This is a common characterisation of the leading therapeutic readers such as Conant, Diamond and Baker (See Stern, 2004, pp.34-36 and pp.45-55). I describe this a ‘characterisation’ because I believe that it is a caricature of the therapeutic view and is often employed as a straw man. It certainly fails to do justice to Baker’s interpretation I rely on in the next chapter. However, from this characterisation, we can gain insight into how a purely negative understanding of the Investigations would fail and take this insight forward to addressing a more plausible understanding of the therapeutic view. In Stern’s account of the Pyrrhonian readers they see Wittgenstein’s central task in the Investigations to end all philosophy:

“According to these interpreters, Wittgenstein aims to get us to give up all philosophical views, not to provide a better philosophy. On this reading, Wittgenstein offers us a form of scepticism that is aimed not at our everyday life, but at philosophy itself, with the aim of putting an end to philosophy and teaching us to get by without it” (Stern, 2004, p.35).

They are therapeutic because they see the Investigations as solely attempting to remove philosophical problems and to show that traditional philosophy falls apart into nonsense. Unhelpfully, for an accurate portrayal, Stern links the therapeutic readers with Rorty. Claiming that they are in agreement that Wittgenstein “resolutely avoids… constructive criticism and sticks to pure satire” (Stern, 2004, p.49). Portrayed in this way, Stern is right to criticise the limited success of this kind of understanding. As with the first view we addressed, the analytic/constructive view, it is limited in applicability to certain aspects of the Investigations. Taking the 47

Pyrrhonian reading to only be concerned with ending philosophy leaves it unable to accommodate the numerous places in the Investigations where Wittgenstein attempts to get us to see things in different ways, where he is aiming to provide us with new ways of looking at the uses of our language and gives us thoughts regarding the nature of philosophy. Stern portrays the therapeutic approach as Pyrrhonian to highlight the dialogical nature of the Investigations. He argues that there are Pyrrhonian and non-Pyrrhonian aspects of the Investigations and the work is informed by Wittgenstein’s constant struggle between these two aspects, reflected in the dialogical nature of the work. The struggle is then internalised by its readers when they read, use and engage with the book. These Pyrrhonian and non-Pyrrhonian aspects can be closely linked to the way I have described the positive and negative aspects of the work.11 However, he fails to satisfactorily understand how the aspects of the book that aren’t on the face of it pure anti-philosophy play a role in a therapeutic understanding. Rendering the therapeutic as unsatisfactory as the constructive view. Unfortunately, this is a commonplace conception of the therapeutic reading. Regardless of its accuracy as a portrayal of the therapeutic view, it reaffirms the failure of interpretations that are under the influence of the two-aspect understanding of the nature of the Investigations. If we try to understand the Investigations as purely negative, as Pyrrhonian, then we rightly fail to properly do justice to all of the book. We are left motivated to look for a better way of understanding the book and its understanding of philosophy. iii. Overcoming the picture The failure of all of the above views should leave one with very serious reservations about the picture of the Investigations as harbouring both positive and negative aspects, as two separate and distinct aspects of the Investigations. To get a successful understanding of the Investigations I believe we have to overcome this alluring picture, that is deeply ingrained in Wittgensteinian interpretation. Through

11 Although I have complicated this distinction by allowing for a purely positive (constructive/analytic), a positive and negative (non-Pyrrhonian/ elucidatory) and a purely negative (Pyrrhonian) interpretation. 48 addressing the therapeutic view, I try to demonstrate a re-imagining of the way we understand the book, so that there is one therapeutic aim that accommodates. By changing the function of the aspects in the work, it reimagines the role and nature of the aspects. This will ultimately change our understanding of the positive and negative aspects, seeing them both as part of a greater therapeutic project, and thus coming to undermine the idea of the Investigations as having two aspects putting the book in tension. 49

Chapter 3: A radically therapeutic understanding of Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophy Leading from the failure of approaches operating with the picture of the Investigations involving two separate tasks, I now turn to an alternative approach. This chapter outlines, and defends, the ‘radically’ therapeutic understanding of the Investigations. It is distinguished from the conception of the therapeutic view from the previous chapter, precisely for the reason it is introduced here. It is because it offers an interpretation that overcomes the flaws in the two-aspect picture of the Investigations. Instead, the two aspects become part of the same overall goal. It is a one philosophical task view, and that task is philosophical therapy. The status of the metaphilosophical position in this chapter is a crucial component of the therapeutic view. As it takes seriously Wittgenstein’s metaphilosophical commitments, as I have argued for, there can be no philosophical theories in the Investigations. This means the status of the therapeutic understanding is not to be conceived of as a theory of metaphilosophy. This also links with the anti- foundational nature of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy. Metaphilosophy, being just like normal philosophising, does not offer us a privileged position from which to construct philosophical theories. Instead, our metaphilosophical investigations is to provide a way of seeing the Investigations, and its worth as an interpretation comes from its ability to clear away problems by seeing things in a new light. As Baker repeatedly insists, Wittgenstein aims to ‘demonstrate a method by means of examples’ (Baker, 2004, p.95, p.117, p.122 and Wittgenstein, §133). This means that we see the nature of the method by looking at how Wittgenstein carries out the Investigations, rather than a formal argument for it. As there is no metaphilosophical ‘theory’ as such, the method is to be judged according to its success. I have used the interpretive issue of the two-aspects view to draw out ways in which it is a success. Katherine Morris describes the status of Baker’s interpretation thus: “Baker would see himself as offering - not the definitive, or the only possible, interpretation of Wittgenstein, but - an alternative way of looking at Wittgenstein.” (2004, p.13). Hitherto this essay has set up the need and potential for an alternative way of looking at Wittgenstein. She goes on: “So entrenched is the conception of philosophy he is 50 combatting that philosophers are apt to find this unsatisfying: as if only a demonstration that this is right and every other interpretation is wrong is worthwhile” (2004, p.13). Again, so far, I have been demonstrating the shortcomings of other views, and directly linking this to a certain way of looking at the Investigations. Now I hope that in presenting an alternative it will not seem unsatisfying but refreshing. We should also keep in mind the historical importance of alternative metaphilosophical viewpoints and keep an open mind when viewing this therapeutic interpretation. It has the possibility of changing the way we look at Wittgenstein’s Investigations and his method, and for presenting an interesting alternative to mainstream analytic philosophy. My first task is to introduce the radically therapeutic view by outlining the key elements of Baker’s groundbreaking interpretation. I will then outline the implications of the view, especially concerning the issues running through this essay. Next, by considering some criticisms of the view, I will present some changes in emphasis that will allow the view to more accurately depict the metaphilosophy of the Investigations. i. Baker and the radically therapeutic view This first section outlines the therapeutic view Baker defended towards the end of his career when he was influenced by the writings of Friedrich Waismann. This culminated in Baker’s Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects (2004), a collection of essays which together are a radical and extensive defence and exploration of a therapeutic understanding of the Investigations. In this section, I shall mainly focus on Chapter 9 of that book, ‘A Vision of Philosophy’, as it gives a succinct yet comprehensive account of Baker’s picture of the Investigations as a therapeutic work. Baker’s view fuses five main ideas to create a vision of the later Wittgenstein’s philosophical method and commitments regarding his philosophical practice. As we run through them, it will be useful to remember that Baker sees his view as an elaboration on Wittgenstein’s remark: “Our method is similar in certain respects to psychoanalysis” (Quoted in Baker, 2004, p.181).

(1) Baker’s understanding of the Investigations is “radically therapeutic” (Baker, p.181). This emphasis is an acknowledgement that although many interpretations of 51 the Investigations are aware of, and accommodate a therapeutic aspect of the work, it does not feature as a core component. Instead, Baker sets out to defend a view where the notion of therapy informs our whole understanding of Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy. Baker is ‘radically therapeutic’ because he presents us with a vision of the Investigations such that Wittgenstein’s method is to be conceived of as a form of therapy. The shift in conception I am trying to describe is that from seeing therapy as an analogy with which we can usefully compare Wittgenstein’s work with, to seeing therapy as a model from which to understand the whole of Wittgenstein’s method. From seeing therapy as a useful comparison to understanding the aims of the book as therapeutic. Unlike Hacker’s ‘intellectual therapy’, where its role is one of two tasks, Baker’s Wittgenstein’s only task is philosophical therapy. Wittgenstein’s intellectual therapy is distinguished by considering the parallels in function it shares with psychoanalysis. This shift in conception has a dramatic effect on the dynamic of the book. As a form of therapy, the Investigations can be read as trying to treat “thinkers and their troubles” (Baker, 2004, p.181). It attempts to provide therapy for the problems that an individual is suffering. This individualisation of the nature of philosophical problems, and the way to overcome them, make participation with the book essential for its success. The work’s sense of a conversational tone, of its effort to pull the reader along, become essential parts of the book, and its success judged in how it brings the reader to overcome their problems. The reader/ ‘patient’/ interlocutor becomes an active part of the discussion. The dialogue can then be reconceptualised as a “rational discussion” with the “patient” with the intent of “changing his way of seeing things” and removing the problem that is causing him suffering (Baker, 2004, p.182). This means moving away from an interpretation whereby the book is argumentative, or representative of two sides of a debate. Wittgenstein is not producing a work where you are to act as the ‘referee’, but one in which you actively participate and engage with. As noted earlier, the Investigations has 784 questions, with only 110 answers, 70 of which are meant to be incorrect answers. This was part of a criticism of constructive views. Now it is easier to see how they play a methodological role for Wittgenstein. If the Investigations is an exercise in philosophical therapy, the questions would stimulate one to think for oneself, something essential if it is to achieve its goal 52 of removing individuals misleading pictures. Wittgenstein’s attempt to “stimulate someone to thoughts of his own” (Preface). Also, relating to my investigation of metaphilosophical critique, Wittgenstein’s therapeutic conception does not try and abandon philosophy completely but takes up a completely alternative perspective on the purpose and aims of philosophy.

(2) Baker draws our attention to Wittgenstein’s use of a range of terminology that denotes an individual’s state of mind as the seat of discomforts and pains that represent philosophical problems. Wittgenstein talks about the feeling of a philosophical problem as involving “disquiet” (PI §111, §112), “discomfort” (BB 26), “angst” (BB 27), “urges” (PI §109), “craving” (BB 17). Alongside this, philosophical problems are conceptualised as “myths” (LC, iii, §86), “superstition” (PI §49, §109), “prejudice” (PI §340), and “illusion” (PI §96, §97, §111, §311, §362). The therapeutic reading conceives the focus of the Investigations to be about the philosophical problems that cause these intellectual and emotional disruptions in an individual. Discomfort and angst affect individuals, and it is to the individuals who suffer in this way that Wittgenstein is offering therapeutic solutions. For an individual suffering from angst and discomfort, what distinguishes them as available for the kind of therapy offered is the object of the emotional discomfort. Wittgenstein looks to ‘cure’ the philosophical problems that cause this discomfort. From this conceptualisation of the individual as the important instantiation of the philosophical problems comes a distinctive understanding of what the Investigations must be aiming at to successfully ‘treat’ these maladies. Wittgenstein must be attempting to provide therapy such that the intellectual discomfort is removed, or the individual’s attitude is changed such that the discomfort no longer is an issue. Again, relating back to the previous aspect, this means that the Investigations aims to resolve “internal conflicts” (Baker, 2004, p.183) of an individual’s state of mind, which requires the reader to actively participate if she is to successfully remove or change her attitude to the problem. At §112 Wittgenstein describes how a simile ‘absorbed into the forms of our language” can “produce a false appearance”, something which “disquiets us”. In this situation, a “picture held us captive” and we try and overcome the picture, to “get 53 outside it” (§115). The therapeutic process involves individuals though and trying to make them see things differently. Wittgenstein anticipates the resistance in this process: “"But this isn't how it is!"—we say. "Yet this is how it has to be!”” (§112).

(3) With this picture in place, we turn to the source of philosophical angst and discomfort, to what Wittgenstein understands as philosophical problems. These are unconscious ‘pictures’, ‘analogies’, or ‘models’ operating in the economy of an individual’s thinking that cause the philosophical ‘illusions’, ‘superstitions’ and ‘prejudices’. These misleading pictures can operate like a “simile absorbed into the forms of our language” (PI §112) and prevent one from finding a way out of our problems. On this understanding, it is crucial to see that prejudice is not operating as something that is a widespread error that can be overturned with rational argument. Instead, prejudice operates at an unconscious level, affecting one’s relationship to evidence and argument, and requires an acknowledgement from the holder to be successfully removed. These prejudices negatively affect our intellectual freedom by holding us in bondage to certain ways of thinking and operate as “norms of representation” (Baker, 2004, p.185). This means they are deeply ingrained ways of representing a subject and seem to fix how things must be. Because of this bondage we must attempt the difficult task of investigating and removing them. In the Investigations Wittgenstein is attempting to uncover these unconscious prejudices that operate on an individual, and deal with them by tracing their motives, their sources, looking at and clearly describing the picture or analogy that we are operating with. Wittgenstein is dissolving philosophical ‘problems’ by changing the way the pictures and analogies function in an individual’s mental life.

(4) Although analogies, pictures and models are what cause philosophical torment, they are also the means through which philosophy can aspire to dislodge the old misleading pictures and analogies. The picture affects our relationship to arguments and evidence and can only be tackled by the individual’s acknowledgement of it as a picture. Then, by affecting a change in the individual’s way of seeing things, their perspective on the picture must change. Only with a change in perspective is one able 54 to see how the picture was operating, and how it was negatively affecting one’s intellectual freedom. Therefore, the Investigations presents reminders, analogies and examples, which present different aspects of our use of language, which serve to bring to light the previous misleading picture as a picture and give the individual a new way of seeing things. This new way of seeing things dislodges the old way of seeing them, but crucially it is not to present a view on how things are, instead it is a picture or analogy that is only successful in that it serves its purpose of dislodging the previous picture. We must be aware of the purpose of the liberating attempts of the Investigations (part of the reason why understanding the metaphilosophy of the work is important) so as to not become tormented by a new picture that becomes misleading when not understand as a picture: the “liberator of yesterday may turn into the tyrant of tomorrow” (Waismann, 1968, p.34). At §131 Wittgenstein states with regard to language-games that we must present “the model as what it is, as an object of comparison—as a sort of yardstick; not as a preconceived idea to which reality must correspond” to avoid the “dogmatism into which we fall so easily in doing philosophy”. It can be taken to convey the sense that we must present analogies and pictures, but not fall into conceiving them as corresponding to reality, instead they are devices used to dislodge misleading pictures and analogies. Importantly, the individual’s “acceptance of the picture” involves changing her “way of looking at things” (§144). The method “is truly extraordinary: juxtaposing pictures with pictures, seeking to reveal no more (and no less!) than new aspects or patterns or orders” (Baker, 2004, p.190). Think of Wittgenstein’s discussion of the function of tools in a toolbox, there “is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a screw-driver, a rule, a glue-pot, glue, nails and screws” (§11). He then draws the comparison between the diverse functions of the tools to the diverse function of words: “the functions of words are as diverse as the functions of these objects” (§11). This new picture, of the words of ordinary language having diverse uses and diverse functions, helps alleviate someone of the conception that all language has one function. Wittgenstein follows this up by considering if someone were to continue 55 to endorse the picture of a single function, attempting to create a rule for a single function.

Suppose someone said, "All tools serve to modify something. So, a hammer modifies the position of the nail, the saw the shape of a board, and so on."—And what is modified by the rule, a glue-pot and nails?—"Our knowledge of a thing's length, the temperature of the glue, and the solidity of the box."——Would anything be gained by this assimilation of expressions? (§14)

The new picture is not defended as necessary, or a theory of the working of language, but a picture that offers a new perspective. It will be judged by its success. What ‘is gained’ by remaining attached to the previous picture?

(5) This entails that “freedom is the essence of philosophy” (Waismann, 1968, p.21). Freedom determines the methods and aims. The method of the therapeutic conception puts enormous emphasis on the freedom of the individual when proposing to effect a change in her way of seeing things. In attempting to dislodge misleading pictures and analogies the method aims to present a new way of looking at things, but it cannot force this vision onto people. It cannot use might and bully someone into seeing things differently. Instead, it respects the individual’s freedom and seeks to bring about their own acknowledgement of the influence of the old picture. This explains the conversational nature of the Investigations, not proving that one must see something one way, but trying to gain consent into looking at things in a new way. Wittgenstein draws out the ways you want to see things, the things you are tempted to say, and the things you demand must be so, and in acknowledging them, tries to bring you to acknowledge that these represent the influence of a picture or analogy. Respecting the individual’s freedom, the argumentative strategy relies on influencing the will of the person involved. On top of this, freedom is also used to justify the whole enterprise. The therapeutic remedy offered in the Investigations is only going to be worthwhile because of the negative impact of the pictures and analogies that held us captive. The pictures and analogies constrict our intellectual freedom. They close our thinking, blocking off paths, making us think some things must be this way, and dictating urges to see things only in a certain way. The method gains its relevance because it aims to increase our 56 intellectual freedom, by allowing acknowledgement of the influence of the picture, and dissolving its attraction. In this way, the Investigations becomes a very personal book and one that is aimed at the reader reaching greater self-understanding in the process of increasing their intellectual freedom. Wittgenstein wants “if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own” (Preface). There is a sense in which the individual is completely free to accept the new way of seeing things. It leads to the moral sense of the work, where it is our duty to aim towards self-understanding and greater intellectual freedom. ii. Metaphilosophical implications of the view This represents the most comprehensive fleshing out of the therapeutic idea of the methodology and purpose of the Investigations. Therapy is centred as the focal point of understanding all aspects of the work. The purpose of the book becomes to conduct a therapeutic cure for the reader. Philosophical problems are conceived in comparison to psychological disorders, they are unconscious pictures that restrict the intellectual freedom of the sufferer. The method then becomes one that fits with the interpretation of the purpose and problems of philosophy, it does not aim to draw out the errors of the misleading pictures but draw the sufferer’s attention to the picture as a picture and remove its influence over them. Crucially, this involves the person’s acknowledgement of the success of the argument. The view is striking and shocking. I want to bring attention to three aspects of the view that will become important for the ways I want to use and improve on it. Firstly, it presents a total vision of the methodology of the Investigations. Secondly, it is an extreme version of taking the analogy of psychoanalysis seriously. Thirdly, it is focused almost exclusively on individuals, both the problems and solutions of philosophy are defined by individuals. Contemporary Wittgenstein scholarship almost universally makes concessions to the idea of a therapeutic aim, or a therapeutic aspect of the Investigations. This makes its way into interpretations in various different ways and various different instantiations of what the nature of this therapy is. One distinctive element of Baker’s view is the extent to which therapy becomes the dominating methodological aspect of the Investigations. It is taken as the method which “dominated Wittgenstein’s work at 57 this period” (Baker, 2004, p.179), and arguably continued to dominate all of “Wittgenstein’s later work” (Baker, 2004, p.201 n.3). He creates a total vision for the therapeutic view, where it can encompass the whole work and Wittgenstein’s intentions within the book. This is crucial in relation to the two aspect view criticised in the last chapter. Now, with a total vision of the text, Baker is able to accommodate the two aspects within a single philosophical task view. The positive and negative aspects are combined into the therapeutic goal. We must note here though that Baker is not attempting to present this aspect of Wittgenstein’s work as the only way to do philosophy, it is merely a vision of how philosophy can be done. Similar to the method of therapy envisioned in the Investigations, it will be useful to those who suffer from the intellectual torments that the view itself tries to solve. This is why I use the failure of the two aspect view as an angle from which to judge the success of the therapeutic view. Baker’s alternative conception draws our attention to different aspects of the metaphilosophy of the Investigations, and one way we can consider it is as an attempt to overcome the view of the text as involving two separate aspects with different tasks. Secondly, even against other therapeutic readings, this version takes the analogy with psychoanalysis radically further than most others are willing to. Telling of this is Baker’s rejection of conceptualising his view as an extension of the analogy of psychoanalysis. This “puts everything in the wrong light” (2004, p.179). Psychoanalysis is not merely an analogy, but instead is a model from which to build this distinctive programme based on psychoanalysis. This represents a radical acceptance of the relevance of psychoanalysis, which sometimes remains unexplored or unaccepted. However, this has drawbacks, psychoanalysis comes with its own intellectual baggage and criticisms, and there are worries about drawing a relationship between Wittgenstein and psychoanalysis. Linked to the previous point, this extensive use of psychoanalysis leaves Baker’s view as extremely focused on the individual. Wittgenstein’s work is concerned with the intellectual torment of individuals, and thus his solutions are tailored to individuals. His work is “essentially person-relative” (Baker, 2004, p.68), and solutions “patient- specific” (Baker, 2004, p.163). This opposes the usual framing of the Investigations, and philosophy in general, in two important ways. This takes the Investigations to not be attempting to challenge schools of philosophical thought, to provide arguments against 58 schools such as dualism, Platonism, the problem of other minds etc. Instead, it focuses on the torments of the individual. Also, it does not provide arguments towards a specific view with regards to a philosophical problem. Instead, as pure therapy, it is only attempting to overcome the problems of the individual engaged. It is concerned with the individual’s responses to problems, his motivations for asking certain questions, the pictures that are causing him to view things in a certain way (Baker, 2004, p.163). This describes a philosophy that becomes extremely individualistic, the problems become individualised, the solutions are tailored to individuals, the reference point for philosophy is individuals. iii. §122 revisited

“A main source of our failure to understand is that we don’t have an overview of the use of our words. —Our grammar is deficient in surveyability. A surveyable representation produces precisely just that kind of understanding which consists in 'seeing connections'. Hence the importance of finding and inventing intermediate cases.” (§122) To gain greater insight into the working of the radially therapeutic interpretation we can look at its direct application to a specific passage of the Investigations. In the previous chapter, I covered this passage in addressing the elucidatory view. Perspicuous representations are at the heart of the positive, elucidatory, aspects of this view. For this reason, debates over the status of this passage have become one of the most important points of contention between the elucidatory and therapeutic views. Foremost amongst the new alternative takes on §122, and the role of perspicuous representations, is an interpretation directly related to Baker’s metaphilosophical insights (Baker, 2004, ch.1; Hutchinson and Read, 2008). This divergent interpretation is intimately tied to metaphilosophical differences. The dispute testifies to the different options available when reading the Investigations. Therapeutic readers take the elucidatory view of perspicuous representation to interpose “a veil which makes clear vision impossible” (Baker, 2004, p.42). This is directly linked to how the two-aspect view of the Investigations has prevented clear vision of the work as a whole. Baker’s offers an alternative vision of the role of perspicuous representations. It is to be judged by its success, and this is why 59 again I will link the insights to overcoming the two philosophical task conception of philosophy. Crucial to Hacker’s view was the idea of mapping our grammatical concepts, employing the metaphor of mapping a landscape. Presenting a perspicuous representation is to provide an arrangement of grammatical rules. Alternatively, Baker rejects the limitation of perspicuous representations to asserting grammatical rules. Instead, to qualify as perspicuous, it only needs to be a representation that clarifies an aspect of grammar for an individual. For the elucidatory reading, a representation is either perspicuous or not, depending on its ability to satisfactorily map a grammatical conception. ‘Perspicuous’ operates attributively, a representation is either inherently perspicuous or not. Instead for Baker, ‘perspicuous’ is not applied to something as an intrinsic aspect of it. A representation is perspicuous only as much as it is successful in the situation in which it is applied. A representation cannot be perspicuous in itself, but to be judged so if it makes perspicuous what it is attempting to. A representation is perspicuous if it functions perspicuously. For Baker, although some representation will be more ‘perspicuous’ than others, this is an attribute of its success in the situation, not a property of the representation. A criticism that we levied at Hacker’s perspicuous representation was that it was committed to the idea of a kind of ‘birds-eye-view’. For Hacker, perspicuous representations are additive, and we can combine them together to gain an overview of ‘our language’. Baker’s view is in complete contrast to this, claiming they “need not be (even roughly) additive” (2004, p.43). There are different aspects of the use of ‘our words’ that may become clear through different successful perspicuous representations. But there is no necessity that the different aspects can be combined towards an overview of the two aspects. Instead, as there just are different aspects to the use of ‘our words’ then the perspicuous representations will individually reveal two different aspects, that are like two different viewpoints on our language use. The most fundamental difference revolves around the criteria of success for a perspicuous representation, which comes from the purpose of them within the methodology of the book. For the elucidatory view, there is not necessarily a clear way of distinguishing what a successful representation is. A representation can be 60 perspicuous or not, and thus can be ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ representations of ‘our grammar’. Wittgenstein aims at providing ‘correct’ perspicuous representation so as to remove misleading pictures, but the success of this removal is distinct from the correctness of the representation. A representation may be perspicuous, but it may not be successful and removing the misleading picture. This goes back to the way I have conceptualised this as a two-stage view of philosophy. Wittgenstein has two distinct tasks. The effect on the reader is irrelevant to the correctness of a perspicuous representation. Instead, for the therapeutic view, the success of a perspicuous representation is clearly defined. It is tied up with the particular circumstance in which it is offered up, and its success is determined by its effectiveness at providing a new aspect and changing someone’s view. Its success is not determined by its ability to provide a representation that fits every use of the section of ‘our language’ under analysis. Instead, for it to be a success, it must do some work. This requires only that it clears up some puzzling aspect of our use. PI §43: “For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language”. Here, the Bakerian view takes seriously Wittgenstein’s use of the modal terms ‘a large class of cases’. The success of Wittgenstein’s alternative picture of the meaning of words is not meant as a theory (analytic interpretation), a potentially ‘correct’ perspicuous representation (elucidatory views), but a representation that is perspicuous to the extent it reveals an aspect of our language, and successful to the extent that it removes misleading pictures of language meaning such as those connected to some kind of Augustinian model of language meaning. The most convincing evidence for this alternative interpretation comes from the typescript TS220 and the remark that immediately precedes what goes on to become §122:

We then change the aspect by placing side-by-side with one system of expression other systems of expression. – The bondage in which one analogy holds us can be broken by placing another [analogy] alongside which we acknowledge to be equally well justified. (TS220, §99)

61

Wittgensteinian therapy is an attempt to understand and analyse certain philosophical problems, by drawing out the way in which a certain picture is limiting the way in which someone is conceptualising something. The role of perspicuous representations is to bring attention to other aspects of a phenomenon, so as to undermine, remove or break the ‘bondage’ of the previous picture. The perspicuous representation is ‘acknowledged’ to be ‘equally well justified’ as the previous picture. Therefore, it is not a more legitimate way of looking at things but is an alternative picture. We “want to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of language: an order for a particular purpose, one out of many possible orders, not the order” (§132). The Investigations presents pictures with a specific ‘end in view’, with the specific purpose of removing a misleading picture. The differences between these two conceptions of a perspicuous representation have significant implications for the metaphilosophical disputes I have been discussing throughout this essay. The role of the perspicuous representations perfectly demonstrates the difference between how each view conceptualise the aims of philosophy for Wittgenstein. The elucidatory view is what I have been calling a two- stage conception of philosophy. This means that for the elucidatory reading there is both a ‘destructive’ and a ‘constructive’ element to Wittgenstein’s philosophy. The ‘destructive’ side, as I have covered, is therapeutic in a sense. For the elucidatory reader, Wittgenstein does have an aim to dissolve illusory philosophical problems. However, there is also a separate and distinct aim, one that is not captured by the therapeutic aspect. This is the ‘constructive’ element, and an example is to achieve ‘perspicuous’ representations (as ‘perspicuous’ operates attributively for the elucidatory reading). This kind of reading, that includes two separate elements, is what in the previous section I canvassed and undermined in various ways. Baker’s view offers something different. On the alternative reading of perspicuous representations, the role of these representations is encompassed by their therapeutic role. A perspicuous representation is used to attempt to achieve the therapeutic outcome, and its success, or quality, is judged solely on its functional ability to achieve this end. A perspicuous representation is not something aimed at in itself.

62

Chapter 4: Two worries The radically therapeutic view has been resisted in a number of different ways. I shall now illustrate two worries that pose a challenge to the interpretation, firstly the individualistic worry, then the positive aspects worry. In each of my responses to these worries I will introduce improvements on Baker’s statement of the therapeutic view. i. Individualistic worry The radically therapeutic view narrows down the target of the philosophical practice to the individual, and the problems addressed are those afflicting the individual’s state of mind. This means that as a piece of philosophy the Investigations is practising a philosophical method whereby the discussion of topics is specifically selected to remove certain patient-specific problems. The problems are not meant to be timeless or eternal problems that are ‘out there’ in the world and require solving. Instead, problems are generated by an individual’s state of mind. The motivation for seeking a resolution to one’s problems is to suffer from them. Wittgenstein should not be understood as critiquing various ‘isms’ and theoretical positions in the history of philosophy (Cartesian Dualism, Behaviourism etc) (Baker, 2004, p.68). Instead, he is working on the specific remarks of writers and individuals (ibid). Twice Baker gives this greater clarity by using the distinction between a doctor trying to eradicate smallpox (treating isms) and a GP working with patients and treating their individual afflictions (individual treatments) (2004, p.68 and p.132). To many, this seems to rid the Investigations of much of its importance, much of which was considered to be in its sweeping destruction of grand philosophical ideas. There has been plenty of discussion on the passages of the Investigations that are often taken to make up the ‘argument’ against the idea of a private language, which is sometimes taken to undermine both Lockean and Cartesian philosophy (See Kenny, 1966). Or its novel use-theory of meaning. To see the book reduced to individual problems, with no “general positive position” (2004, p.68) seems to some to remove its importance. For many, it is not at all obvious that Wittgenstein is aiming to discuss the specific remarks of writers and deal with the problems of individuals. 63

This line of criticism is taken by Hacker in his extended rejection of the ‘late interpretation’ of Baker, i.e. the radically therapeutic view (Hacker, 2007). Here Hacker claims that “[i]t is quite wrong to suppose that Wittgenstein’s targets are always specific muddles of specific people” and that the Investigations is “not comparable to a GP’s casebook” (ibid, p.100). Hacker’s main contention is that Baker has misunderstood the status of Wittgenstein arguments and the Investigations does address the “grand schools of philosophical thought” (ibid, p.101). Beyond repeating his own interpretation in contrast to Baker’s, Hacker’s evidence for this comes from the Preface and some of Wittgenstein’s comments on his own work. In the Preface to the Investigations Wittgenstein characterises the book as journeys over a wide landscape, and concerned with “the concepts of meaning, of understanding, of a proposition, of logic, the foundations of mathematics, states of consciousness, and other things”. Not only this, Hacker cites several occasions in notes where Wittgenstein mentions philosophical isms which he is tackling in passages of the Investigations, especially solipsism in the private language argument. All this culminates in Hacker’s approving of Wittgenstein as “the destroyer of the great tradition of Western philosophy” (ibid, p.102). Hacker takes this to contradict the idea that Wittgenstein simultaneously conceived of the Investigations as “providing individual (tailor-made) therapies” (ibid, p.102), which is straightforwardly a criticism of the radically therapeutic view. Despite this, none of Hacker’s arguments convincingly undermine Baker’s conception. Comments from notes which show Wittgenstein referring to philosophical isms is not enough evidence that in the Investigations he is attempting to respond to them. This is also the case with the comment from the Preface used by Hacker. Wittgenstein states that his thoughts “concern many subjects” (Preface) but this cannot be used as convincing evidence that he is providing philosophical arguments which are arguments directly responding to philosophical schools. Wittgenstein also claims that the thought in the Investigations goes “criss-cross in every direction”, and that the book is best regarded as an “album” (Preface). Which more naturally characterises Baker’s therapeutic casebook than Hacker’s view that Wittgenstein is responding to philosophical isms. Hacker’s argument may not be a convincing knockdown argument against Baker, but it does point towards a serious worry for Baker. Hacker’s evidence may not entail we must go back to a version of the Investigations where Wittgenstein is 64 the destroyer of philosophy, combined with presenting a positive new vision. But Hacker does make us pause about the generality with which Wittgenstein therapeutic investigations tackles philosophical problems. There does seem to be plenty of evidence that Wittgenstein was still engaging with philosophical problems and positions in the Investigations. Part of the problem here is Baker’s overemphasis on the individual in his conception. This is partly explained by the ingrained attitude he is trying to overcome; Baker stresses the individual to emphasise different aspects of the Investigations. A recoil away from ingrained ways of understanding the work. Still, there is a worry that there is an overemphasis on the individual. I want to address this concern by exploring the concept of ‘form of life’ for Wittgenstein, and its connection to language games. It is a concept that for Wittgenstein highlights the relationship between the individual, language, and a community of language speakers. From this, I draw out some ways in which the emphasis on the individual can be reduced, and we can better understand Wittgenstein’s interaction with general philosophical problems without rejecting the radically therapeutic view. This will involve an aspect of therapy whereby more general philosophical positions can be addressed without reducing to general theorising.

Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’ The term ‘form’ or ‘forms of life’ appears only five times in the Investigations, a handful of times in unpublished notes, and once in On Certainty. Nevertheless, it has become a central concept when exploring Wittgenstein’s later work.12 It represents, in some fashion, the way in which Wittgenstein draws attention to the connections between life and language, and the ways in which our shared ways of acting help define our ways of talking. Typical of Wittgensteinian scholarship it has stimulated much debate. Out of which different interpretations of the concept have proliferated. One

12 Norman Malcolm states that “one could hardly place too much stress on the importance of this latter notion [forms of life] in Wittgenstein's thought” (1975, p.91). Stanley Cavell thinks that “Human speech and activity, sanity and community, rest upon nothing more, but nothing less than [forms of life]” (1975, ch.2). For a dissenting view regarding the importance of the concept of a form of life see Max Black (1978).

65 interpretative issue surrounds the distinction between multiple human forms of life (Whittaker 1978) or of just one human form of life (Garver, 1994). The concept’s relationship to relativism is also a matter of contention. Some see Wittgenstein as endorsing a relativism between different forms of life (Rorty, 1989). Others see the concept as playing a foundational role of certainty as a reference point for Wittgenstein’s depiction of language use (Moyal-Sharrock, 2015). The application of the concept to the natural world also causes disagreements. Some see it as a biological concept, separating different animals, and presenting a kind of natural history (Hunter, 1968). On the other side, there are those that take the concept to be concerned with delineating cultural differences between different forms of life (Gier 1980; Lurie, 1992). Another offshoot is those that subscribe to a conservative vision of forms of life, as standing forms that we should resist attempting to change or alter suddenly (Nyíri 1982). While others take a more liberal view, and believe the forms are fluid and open to change, adaption and mending (Rorty, 1989). In 1968, Hunter distinguished between four distinct ways in which the concept of the form of life could be understood. Since then the concept has only proven to be more flexible and open to a wider range of interpretations. I do not hope to wade through the mud attempting to rescue the term by deciphering its exact meaning. Nor would that be useful for the purposes of this essay. Instead, I want to draw on certain aspects of the way in which the concept has been used by Wittgenstein, looking at its role within his methodology. This helps to keep the term alive within the therapeutic methodology so far defended. Doing this I want to pay close attention to its relationship to the metaphilosophical insights of the Investigations, and also demonstrate its ability to tie together both the individual and the community. The first aspect I want to draw on is the dual senses of the concept as used by Wittgenstein. Cavell, Moyal-Sharrock, and Conway (1988, 2015, 1982 respectively), argue that we should not limit our exploration of the concept to just one of these senses. These two senses include a vertical and a horizontal sense, both of which emphasise different aspects of the use of ‘form of life’. The vertical sense picks out a biological use of the term, whereby ‘form of life’ is a concept that is used to distinguish the distinctive human life from the life-forms of other animals that we share existence with. At §241 Wittgenstein claims that humans agree because of their shared use of language, which 66 is an agreement in a form of life. For there to be any communication there must be “not only agreement in definitions, but also (odd as it might sound) agreement in judgements” (§242). Our shared form of life, and shared ways of acting and judging create the possibility for communication. The biological sense recalls differences between animals, such as “poking at your food, perhaps with a fork, and pawing at it, or pecking at it” (Cavell, 1988, p.255). It is used to vertically distinguish between the different animal life-forms, picking out distinguishing features of what it is to be a certain form of life. The horizontal sense is instead concerned with the socio-cultural differences between different human ways of living. Horizontally, this sense draws out the cultural differences that exist between different forms of human life. Several times in the Investigations Wittgenstein invites the reader to imagine different languages or a different way of living and expressing ourselves. In §19 we are asked to imagine a language “consisting only of questions and expressions for answering Yes and No”. At §243 it is to imagine human beings “who spoke only in monologue”. For Wittgenstein “to imagine a language is to imagine a form of life” (§19). These different possibilities highlight that there are different forms of human life, and this is the horizontal or cultural sense the concept. We can then put it this way: there is a distinct human form of life (vertically from other animals), but there are also distinct instantiations of this human form of life (horizontally between different cultures). The two senses, the vertical and the horizontal, that appear in use for Wittgenstein, represent two ways in which Wittgenstein can make us aware of our relationship to our own form of life. We are both connected to the human form of life, as opposed to other types of animal life. As well, we are connected to certain forms of this human form of life, whereby different ‘cultures’ or ‘societies’ will be represented by their own form. We do not speak only in monologue. Under the radically therapeutic view so far discussed, Wittgenstein is attempting to provide a work that is person- relative, aiming to uncover and undermine philosophical illusions as held by the individual. From understanding Wittgenstein’s ‘form of life’ however, this view gets somewhat complicated. Wittgenstein does not only address the individual in the Investigations but is concerned with the individual’s relationship to their community. Certain aspects of the individual only acquire their sense and their meaning from the 67 form of life that they are. Therefore, I believe that to fully understand the role of philosophical problems for Wittgenstein, we must understand their role not only in the life of the individual but their role in the form of life that the individual is part of. I mean by this that there is a relationship between a form of life and certain philosophical problems, that Wittgenstein uses in his therapeutic process. Wittgenstein took philosophy to be “a struggle against the bewitchment of our understanding by the resources of our language” (§109). Tied up with the idea of language was the idea of a form of life, “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life” (§19). In some sense for Wittgenstein then, as part of our form of life is our language, we are battling against an aspect of the form of life we are. Pictures lay in our language and hold us captive: “we couldn’t get outside it, for it lay in our language, and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably” (§115). Wittgenstein claims that we are prone to be misled by analogies and pictures, that can be “absorbed into the forms of our language” (§112). For Wittgenstein, this picture of the way in which we can fall into philosophical problems is not limited to the individual but can be used to represent whole forms of life. Pictures being absorbed into the forms of our language represent how certain philosophical illusions are not limited to the thinking of an individual but can plague a community. Wittgenstein appreciates the dangerous way in which we can be led towards philosophical problems as a community. When Hacker argues that Wittgenstein discusses the private language argument because it is “the source of widespread philosophical confusions and errors that run through much of Western philosophy”, he takes this to contradict Baker’s claim. This creates a false dichotomy though. Wittgenstein can be discussing and reflecting on ‘widespread philosophical confusions’ without having to be committed to a constructive or elucidatory view. Instead, Wittgenstein can be reflecting on widespread philosophical confusions that he sees as affecting our form of life, without removing the idea that philosophical problems exist in individuals state of minds. Think of a GP who sees a widespread illness commonly affecting individuals and preaching a cure that they see as likely to help overcome this illness. Wittgenstein’s claim that he used the passage from Augustine in passage §1 because it must be important if such great a thinker had said it, now gets given a different light (See Malcolm, 1984, p.59). It does not refute the therapeutic understanding of Baker but highlights how Wittgenstein could be 68 responding to the philosophical problems that tormented even the great minds, and which could be widespread delusions. Here, we must again distinguish between the two senses of form of life. For Wittgenstein, I take it to be in the nature of the human form of life, so defined by its linguistic capabilities, that it is prone to bewitchment by language (vertically distinguished from other animals). However, what Wittgenstein addresses himself to is the form of life that he sees himself embedded in, and the ways in which he sees the thinking of this way of life to be misleading (horizontal sense of our specific human form of life). Not all individuals will be similarly affected, and not all fall into exactly the same way of thinking. Moreover, this can still hold on to the insights of the therapeutic method. Understanding Wittgenstein as concerned with philosophical problems that come to affect a form of life does not compel us to a view with positive arguments against a certain way of ‘misunderstanding the form’ of our language. Instead, we can maintain that he is presenting other pictures and aspects relevant to our form of life, which are used to dislodge philosophical prejudices. If Wittgenstein can represent to us the ways in which we are liable to be caught in the trap of these philosophical problems, not only as individuals but as a community, we can then take his philosophical therapy to not be person-specific, but community-specific. Wittgenstein’s arguments will not hold for all humans of all times. His therapeutic method is restricted to those that share the same pictures and illusions which he is attempting to characterise. This goes back to the connection to the individual however, successful therapy requires the “interlocutor’s assent” (Baker, 2004, p.188), it must be a voluntary acceptance. But this does not need to reduce Wittgenstein’s insights to a form of ‘person-specific’ insight. Another aspect which I think opens up the space for more general philosophical problems is Wittgenstein’s use, and stimulation, of our ability to imagine different forms of life, other than our own. This is very important to the methodology of the Investigations. Imagining another form of life motivates us to consider the relationship between meaning and form of life in other contexts rather than our own. This has the dual effect of considering the relationship between meaning and form of life and coming to reflect on the nature of our own form of life as separate from other forms of life. This helps us understand one of Wittgenstein’s use of language games. The 69

Investigations is meant to be an exercise in transforming latent nonsense to patent nonsense (§464). Part of the importance of form of life for the methodology is that through language games Wittgenstein impels us to consider other forms of life, to bring out nonsensical ways in which we picture the relationship to our own form of life. If we take Wittgenstein’s famous use of the builder example there are two ways to take the example (See Goldfarb, 1983). We can either imagine the builders as representing a different form of life, with the example described being the totality of their ‘language’. Or we can consider them playing a certain game but within a wider community of language speaker like us. Either way, what I believe is crucial to the examples, is in making us think about our own form of life, because we are reflecting on the coherence of calling what the builders have a language. Wittgenstein leads us from imagining the example, back to considering our own form of life, and considering differences and similarities. The way in which we get purchase on this example is by considering the way in which we live, and the way in which we act (we can see Wittgenstein pressing this point when considering the translation of their ‘language’ to ours). The only reference point we have is our own ways of acting, and our own language. We must reflect on this as a comparison to the imagined example created by Wittgenstein. This view on the reflective use of language games is explicit in his discussion of the purpose of language games:

“Our clear and simple language-games are not preliminary studies for a future regimentation of language—as it were, first approximations, ignoring friction and air-resistance. Rather, the language-games stand there as objects of comparison which, through similarities and dissimilarities, are meant to throw light on features of our language” (§130).

Wittgenstein presents alternative pictures of the relationship between ways of living and language in an attempt to change our way of looking at our own life and language. He is aiming for us “to regard a given case differently: that is, to compare it with this sequence of pictures”, with the ultimate goal of changing our “way of looking at things” (§144). So in §19, when we are asked to imagine a language “consisting only of questions and expressions for answering yes or no”, and §243 to imagine human beings 70

“who spoke only in monologue”, one of the goals is for us to reflect back on our own language, and own lives. This kind of method is also apparent here:

“One of the most important methods I use is to imagine a historical development for our ideas different from what actually occurred. If we do this we see the problem from a completely new angle” (CV, p.37).

Using creative imaginary considerations to draw attention to unseen aspects. What makes this important for the therapeutic understanding of the Investigations is that it introduces a new method used by Wittgenstein in which to therapeutically remove misleading pictures. It is a method whereby thinking critically about other forms of life bring attention to our own. Despite being therapeutic, it also has a communal aspect to it. We compare it to the way we act, as a community, the only reference point we have. We do not refer it just to ourselves. Therefore, one aspect of Wittgenstein’s method is not directed at only a patient-specific form of illuminations but uses a form of life as a reference point from which to attempt a therapeutic removal of misleading pictures. This carves out space for a new aspect of Wittgenstein’s therapy, where we can see it as addressed to philosophical concerns that are perceived in a community of thinkers. This means that Wittgenstein’s procedure could be responding to misleading pictures that he perceives as common in an intellectual community, and an attempt to free interlocutors from common philosophical prejudices, breaking the grip of misleading pictures by presenting new ones. It allows him to assess the kind of problems and pictures not just on an individual level, even if the therapy can only be successful on an individual. He is using language games as an object of comparison to remove misleading pictures that are about our form of life. It is a therapeutic method whereby misleading pictures are attempted to be dislodged by comparing similarities and differences with imaginary forms of life. By commenting on our shared form of life Wittgenstein is able to comment on general philosophical problems, without abandoning the therapeutic methodology. These reflections on methodology can improve the strength of Baker’s take on the private language argument (see chapter 5, 6 and 7 of 2002). Hacker has argued it “is quite wrong” (2007, p.100) to deny that Wittgenstein is responding to the 71 philosophical insight of Descartes and Locke. We can now re-identify the status of the Wittgenstein’s therapy in response. He is addressing the insights of Descartes and Locke, to a certain extent, by addressing the philosophical prejudices that he perceives in his interlocutors and the community in general. Baker recoils from the traditional interpretation and seems to reduce the importance of any philosophical prejudices that are widespread in a community, and from this Hacker recoils from Baker and insists on the importance of ‘grand philosophical schools’ in the Investigations. Instead, we can see the private language argument as therapeutically responding to ingrained and influential philosophical prejudices that Wittgenstein believes are undermining clear thinking. In this, there can be links between where these pictures began, and in this way Wittgenstein is responding to the philosophical instigators of such a picture. But this does not undermine the radically therapeutic view in the way Baker seems to be worried of. It does not mean we have to have this relationship as providing argument against them and trying to “lodge objections to certain Great Philosophers and score points off them” in Baker’s words (2002, p.138). The relationship is via Wittgenstein’s response to philosophical prejudices he perceives, and the therapy can only be successful on individuals.

With new aspects of Wittgenstein’s use of form of life in the Investigations, I have aimed to explore methods and concerns of Wittgenstein’s that can often be ignored when people defend the therapeutic view. As I have mentioned, part of the reason for the absence of community problems is that this usually comes with an endorsement of a constructive or elucidatory view. To combat this ingrained picture, the therapeutic view has had to distance itself from such interpretations and highlight that philosophical problems are strictly related to individuals. However, as I have shown, we can maintain this conception of philosophical problems, while also allowing that Wittgenstein commented on more general ways in which we are misled. This does not mean that his thoughts will apply to all forms of life, and philosophical problems are universal. Instead, it shows that Wittgenstein had a deep understanding of the general way in which we can be misled, and his book is an attempt to draw out ways in which collectively we are likely to go wrong. This can be usefully applied to the status of the private language argument. In response to Hacker’s criticism with which we began, 72

Wittgenstein can consider and respond in some ways to a general viewpoint, while remaining radically therapeutic. To update the medical analogies, Wittgenstein is as a doctor with a vast knowledge of the human body, and one who has the intelligence to stop general patterns in the way it gets ill. ii. The positive aspect worry In chapter 2 I explored how there seem to be two aspects of the Investigations, one of which was the positive parts of the text where Wittgenstein appears to propose novel philosophical ideas and theories. In contrast, the therapeutic view means defending the idea that Wittgenstein is not attempting to present any positive commitments in the Investigations beyond the attempt at therapeutically removing illusions. There may be parts of the work that seem to provide positive commitment, but these should be understood as playing a role in the therapeutic aim of the text. This has faced serious resistance, and often incredulity, that it is a persuasive interpretation. These are relevant questions and a successful therapeutic view will have to persuade sceptical readers that the view can provide a role within the text for difficult passages. It is also a worry that is not quite adequately addressed by Baker himself. Baker very intelligently and successfully conveys the desired effect of the Investigations and details a compelling alternative picture. But there is a slight lack of comment on the actual form of the Investigations that leads to the desired effect on the reader and the process involved in coming to understand it. I believe that by exploring the role of dialogue in Investigations, and the use of different ‘voices’ in the text, there are the resources to enhance the therapeutic view. Once we appreciate the dialogical nature of the text, we will be in a much better position to understand the different voices active in it, and the way in which we can take the parts of the book that appear as positive commitments. Jane Heal succinctly summarises the motivation for describing the Investigations as dialogical: “What, however, makes the term seem entirely apt is the strong impression that, from time to time, a voice other than Wittgenstein’s speaks, i.e. that some thought other than one endorsed by Wittgenstein himself is being expressed” (1995, p.68).

73

This brief statement provides a deep insight into the working of the Investigations. The book contains different voices, and in many parts of the book there are voices in conversation, even argumentation, with each other. This means that not all aspects of the book are best read as straightforwardly Wittgenstein himself and that the work is to be considered dialogical to some extent. A dialogical reading is also motivated by similar considerations as I have been following throughout this essay. The tensions between aspects of the work pulling in different directions inspire David Stern to look at a relationship between two voices (2004). He begins by addressing the common way of understanding the use of voices in the Investigations. On this reading, the Investigations is not a dialogue but takes the form of a debate between two voices. There is the voice to be identified as the ‘interlocutor’, who plays the role of “the naïve stooge or fall guy” (Stern, 2004, p.3). This is a voice exhibited by Wittgenstein to voice counter-arguments and ultimately incorrect solutions. Against this voice, there is the voice of Wittgenstein himself, who presents Wittgenstein’s view and frequently overcomes the arguments of the interlocutor. Wittgenstein’s own voice is used to present his ‘solution’ or view on the matter under ‘discussion’. This has led many interpreters to see the practice of understanding the Investigations as one of coming to properly identify the views of the ‘narrator’ which presents Wittgenstein’s views and then systematically present the arguments of this voice. This weakens the importance of the conversational nature of the text to a “stylistic and literary preference” (Kripke, 1982, p.5), whereby it is a feature of the book but not essential to its method. This view of the Investigations, however, leads to the kind of problems I have been drawing out throughout the previous section. If there is a narrator who we can identify as Wittgenstein, and who is presenting views on philosophical problems against an interlocutor, then why is there contradictory views from a voice that also seems to be Wittgenstein’s? How do we square these two emphases? What I mean here is that, unfortunately, there seem to be two voices that distinguish themselves as Wittgenstein’s. One who represents the positive aspects and one who represents the negative aspects. The dialogical approach frees us from these problems by interpreting the book as involving multiple voices, which form a dialogue, instead of a debate. In Stern 74 excellent exploration of a dialogical approach to the Investigations13 he distinguishes between two voices usually “lumped together as ‘Wittgenstein’s’” (2004, p.5). Sterns discerns between what he terms Wittgenstein’s ‘narrator’ and Wittgenstein’s ‘commentator’. The ‘narrator’ voice of the book is concerned to present philosophical solutions, as seen by the ways in which we explored ‘positive’ readings of the Investigations. The ‘commentator’ voice represents Wittgenstein’s therapeutic tendencies, he claims to dispel philosophical confusion by removing philosophical problems. Readers who tend to place emphasis on the ‘narrator’ are likely to reconstruct the Investigations in light of the commentator’s seeming commitment to certain philosophical theories, against the incorrect views of the interlocutor. On the other hand, readers who focus on the ‘commentator’ regard the Investigations as a means to an end: “the dissolution of philosophical problems and the end of traditional philosophy” (Stern, 2004, p.5). Stern emphasises how interpreters can easily fall in the grasp of viewing the narrator as posing the views Wittgenstein is attempting to propose. This can be seen in the constructive or elucidatory readings. He does an admirable job of providing an alternative narrative arc to the Investigations. No voice in the Investigations can be straightforwardly identified with Wittgenstein, but “the closest the author of the Philosophical Investigations comes to expressing his owns views is not in the person of his narrator… but rather in the moments when he steps back from the serio-comedy and offers us a striking simile, or draws our attention to platitudes that philosophers don’t take seriously” (Stern, 2004, p.25). Thus, throughout the book, there certainly is a trend whereby the narrator propounds certain anti-essentialist and anti-Tractarian views as opposed to the interlocutor’s essentialist and Tractarian views. But we must also appreciate a third voice, that of the commentator, that presents “ironic commentary” (2004, p.22) on the ensuing debate. Thus, we are not left with a book that is attempting to persuade us to endorse one side of a debate in philosophy (realism v. anti-realism), but that overcomes the debate. This dialogical aspect of the work presents the way out of the initial problem that we conceived of for the therapeutic reading so far being discussed. We began this

13 See D Stern (2004) Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction. 75 section by highlighting the concern that parts of the Investigations appear to be endorsing positive philosophical position, and how this was at odds with the therapeutic understanding of the Investigations. We now see that viewing the book this way demonstrates a lack of appreciation of the dialogical nature of the work, and how Wittgenstein operates through the guise of several different voices. It should not be taken as obvious which sections represent the true voice of Wittgenstein, and which are used to explore a certain view, of which Wittgenstein is not endorsing. This makes the therapeutic view more plausible and gives it greater tools to explain the form of the Investigations. Despite overcoming this worry for Baker, I believe we have run into a more fundamental concern for the therapeutic view. Stern takes the ‘commentator’ voice to be the closest we get to Wittgenstein’s own view. He also takes a view that seems to endorse the ‘commentator’s’ voice to be the one that focuses on the therapeutic understanding of the Investigations. Unfortunately, Stern does not make it clear why it is the ‘commentator’s’ voice that we should take to be the closest to Wittgenstein’s voice. Nor, why, if we see the Investigations as a dialogue, we should take any of the voices in the Investigations as definitely his own. The status of the commentator’s voice should be as equally vulnerable as the narrator. Not only are we left questioning this for Stern’s view of the Investigations, but they also can extend to Baker’s therapeutic understanding. It is not clear how Baker is going to defend a view of the ‘metaphilosophy’ of the Investigations, if all theories are removed from the pages of the book. The ‘commentator’s’ voice should be held to the same standards of the book, and if it is presented as a voice that is not going to present philosophical theories, how can we square this with understanding the metaphilosophical commitments of the work? Parallels with interpretive issues surrounding the Tractatus help give perspective to the form of this worry.14 Resolute readers of the Tractatus (Conant, Diamond, Cavell, etc.) believe that the central part of the Tractatus does not present any positive philosophical theories, despite appearing to. The correct way to understand Wittgenstein’s comment at 6.53 is that the body of the work is total nonsense, there is

14 See S. Bronzo (2012) for a detailed exposition of the interpretative debates surrounding the resolute and irresolute readers of the Tractatus. 76 only one type of nonsense, and hence there is no knowledge that can be gained from the text. Instead, we should use the ‘frame’ of the work, propositions that survive the elucidatory process, as all that remains after the ladder has been climbed. The rest should be considered nonsense. Here, resolute readers believe that much of what constitutes other ways of understanding the Tractatus, that take the body of the work to either present serious philosophical theories or to be able to convey ineffable philosophical insight, to have not climbed far enough up the ladder. They are trying to take as positive bits of the work that must be discarded as nonsense. Here, with the Investigations, although the story is different, there are some interesting parallels. The therapeutic understanding that I am presenting sees many of the previous ways of taking the Investigations to be essential for an understanding of the work. This is because, although they do not present correct interpretation of the work, they allow us to understand ways of thinking that must be overcome. Within the resolute camp, there is also a distinction between Girondin and Jacobin readings (Goldfarb, 2011). Jacobin readings believe that even the ‘frame’ of the work must be overcome and eventually becomes something which is thrown away with the ladder. The totality of the Tractatus is to ultimately be overcome, there are no privileged parts of it. This is opposed to the Girondin view which maintains the frame survives the elucidatory process. We can see the relationship of the Girondins to the Jacobins in the worries regarding the status of the metaphilosophical remarks for the therapeutic understanding of the Investigations. The question surrounds the justification for a privileged view of Wittgenstein’s commentator, and how far the dialogical reading should go to distancing Wittgenstein from the views of the voices of the dialogue. Insight from my first chapter should bring to bear some resources for considering the justification for giving privilege to Wittgenstein’s commentator. I considered the nature of metaphilosophy. It became clear from that discussion that philosophy was to be distanced from science for Wittgenstein, and that this led us to a non-hierarchical understanding of the relationship between metaphilosophy and philosophy. He rejected a ‘second-order’ interpretation of it (§121). Doing metaphilosophy was to just be doing philosophy. As this is the case, Wittgenstein’s commentators’ metaphilosophical insights should be considered on the same level as other philosophical insights. There is no privileged position for metaphilosophy. This itself 77 undercuts the justification for the privileged position that Stern allows for Wittgenstein’s commentator. There cannot be a voice that is the defence of a philosophical method, because this would re-introduce hierarchy into the text. If the therapeutic view is to continue to take seriously the idea that there are no philosophical theories presented in the Investigations, then it must follow that there are no metaphilosophical ‘theories’ propounded by Wittgenstein. We must give up the idea that Wittgenstein is asserting a ‘view’ on philosophy:

Rather than asserting a method and laying claim to it, Wittgenstein makes use of a procedure, and lays claim to the concrete results of his practice. The crucial question is whether he succeeds in making the particular problems disappear; that is the only thing which is worth arguing about. Wittgenstein intends to demonstrate a method by means of examples (§133). (Baker, 2004, p.122).

Instead, the commentator also becomes part of the dialogical nature of the text itself. Wittgenstein does not lay ‘claim’ to the method but its results. But where does this leave the method of the Investigations itself? After all, if we are taking the Investigations to be a therapeutic dialogue, then there are times in the Investigations when Wittgenstein comes close to describing this method, in the voice of the commentator: “there is not a philosophical method, though there are indeed methods, different therapies, as it were” (§133). I think Baker has the resources to explain the nature of the therapeutic understanding after the final rung of the ladder is climbed. Baker insists on the importance of Wittgenstein’s claim that “a method is now demonstrated by examples” (§133, see Baker, 2004, p.95, p.117, p.122). Although Stern is right to highlight how the commentator comes closest to describing the actual method that we find in the work, this still represents a character in the dialogue. Just as Wittgenstein uses devices to show that we must overcome philosophical problems by removing the misleading pictures and metaphors that cause us to be inclined to make proto-philosophical claims, Wittgenstein is equally showing us a metaphilosophical method that is only useful to the extent in which it helps us remove philosophical problems. It is not the way to do philosophy, it is a way, and it is used by Wittgenstein to help remove philosophical problems. It is interesting that Stern criticises Baker for not appreciating the dialogical nature of the Investigations (2004, pp.128-129). What I have explored through this 78 section seems to agree with Stern, but then by delving deeper into the dialogical nature of the text, discover a deeper problem for Stern’s view. This, in turn, means that we must climb up the last rung of the ladder, and from here it is Baker that can inform Stern’s view. Ultimately, I believe that both the therapeutic and the dialogical insights of the nature of the Investigations are complementary, and both are required to overcome the problems we find in each view. I want to briefly highlight two ways in which it is possible to see how together they offer complementary insights in understanding the Investigations. Firstly, Baker’s picture of the nature of philosophical problems as in need of being therapeutically removed led him to a position where you can only overcome a picture with another picture. This is because you cannot refute a picture, but you must change the way in which someone looks at something, allowing them to overcome the picture. Here we can reinforce our commitment to the dialogical reading of the book. A dialogue reading allows Wittgenstein to be using different pictures, and different ways of looking at things, without himself committing to these different pictures. Baker highlights how a picture is only useful to the extent to which it removes the constricting picture. It is the same with a dialogue if it is not used to present a philosophical view which Wittgenstein wants us to commit to, then its use must be in what it can achieve for us therapeutically. Secondly, the dialogical reading can instruct us on the relationships between the different interpretations that have featured during this essay. The dialogical reading allows us to see Wittgenstein using voices to express ways in which people easily fall into philosophical mistakes. It allows us a much better vantage point from which to understand why so many interpreters of the Investigations have taken it as straightforward that there are positive philosophical commitments in the book. They have failed to take account of the different voices of the work, and its dialogical nature. They are taken in by comments which certainly do describe and voice certain philosophical ‘views’, but which do not represent Wittgenstein’s commitment to them. The extremely tempting urge to do this even occurs to some extent in Stern’s own work, as I have shown in his commitment to ‘a view’ for Wittgenstein regarding his metaphilosophy. In his own words “such readings exemplify the very craving for generality they profess to overcome” (2004, p.129). 79

iii. Responding to two problems confronting the radically therapeutic interpretation I have incorporated different elements of the methodology used by Wittgenstein in the Investigations. They serve to overcome the initial issues. This process was not aiming to challenge Baker’s view or undermine it, but instead to open up fresh avenues for understanding elements not sufficiently covered by Baker. This means that they are alterations in emphasis but remain within the scope of the view. In the responses I opened up discussion of two elements of Wittgenstein’s methodology that can enhance the view defended so far. This was Wittgenstein’s use of form of life and language games as tools for comparisons with our shared ways of living which opened up space for discussion philosophical problems in the community. There was also the discussion of the dialogical nature of the Investigations, and the ways in which we can complement our understanding of the purpose of the Investigations by seeing how different voices operate within the text.

80

Concluding Remarks: The essay has compared two pictures of the text of the Investigations, and its metaphilosophical outlook. In the first one, in chapter 2, the text has two aspects one of which is positive and one of which is negative. This leads most naturally to a two stage view of philosophy, whereby there is a negative ‘therapeutic’ task in the Investigation, alongside a positive task, most notably Hacker’s conceptual geography. This two task view has been undermined, and so has the picture which influences it. Next to the failure of this view, I have described and explored an alternative picture, whereby philosophy and the Investigations, has only one task. This is a therapeutic task. This is not a purely negative or positive task. It attempts to free interlocutors from their philosophical prejudices, breaking the grip of misleading pictures by presenting new ones. I have tried to use the very failures and inconsistencies of the two stage view to highlight the success of the one stage view. I believe it presents a Wittgenstein of the Investigations that is often overlooked, and one that offers a radical and compelling vision for philosophy. Throughout, this can be seen as an exercise that attempts to change our way of looking at the Investigations, with the dual prompts of undermining one picture and providing a different one that improves in the ways the old one fails. If I have been convincing, then a shift in the way in which one see’s the Investigations will have to take place, and this is what philosophy is for Wittgenstein:

Work on philosophy - like work in architecture in many respects - is really more work on oneself. On one's own conception. On how one sees things. (CV, §16)

One insight that is constantly touched on throughout the essay, and something I would like readers to take from it, is the falsity of attempting to separate the methodological away from the ‘philosophical’ aspects of the Investigations. Part of the failure of the two task view was that it attempted to do just that. There were aspects of the work that were considered ‘negative’ and comprised of methodological commitments. Then there were positive aspects that presented views on philosophical topics. The insight of the therapeutic view is to only see the Investigations as having one, therapeutic, task. The methodological aspects of the work are then linked with the ‘philosophical’ ones. Thus the way it is written, the style of the text, and its method are not separate from but 81 integral to the philosophical insights it is attempting to make. We cannot understand the philosophy separate from the methodology.

The essay began with a discussion of the current climate of criticism being levied at the research programme of analytic philosophy. The therapeutic view offered here not only promotes itself as an interpretation of Wittgenstein but can lead to discussion and conversation about philosophy modelled on therapy. Any discussion in this direction will greatly benefit from considering the Wittgenstein of the Investigations and exploring the radically therapeutic view of philosophy. I hope to have convincingly presented a novel interpretation of the Investigations, one that will further discussion of therapeutic views of philosophy.

82

Bibliography

The following abbreviations are used to refer to Wittgenstein’s works: PI (Philosophical Investigations), ROC (Remarks on Colour), CV (Culture and Value), T (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus)

Alston, W.P., (1964). The Philosophy of Language. New York: Prentice Hall.

Apel, K., (1980). Towards a Transformation of Philosophy. London: Routledge.

Ariew, R., (1992). Descartes and the Tree of Knowledge. Synthese, vol.92 (1), pp.101- 116.

Baker, G., (1974). Criteria: A New Foundation for Semantics. Ratio, vol.16, pp.156- 189.

Baker, G., (2004). Wittgenstein’s Method: Neglected Aspects. Ed by K. Morris. Oxford: Blackwell.

Baker, G., & Hacker, P.M.S., (1980). Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning: An Analytic Commentary on the ‘Philosophical Investigations’, Volume 1. Oxford: Blackwell.

Baker, G., and Hacker, P.M.S., (2005). Wittgenstein: Understanding and Meaning - Part 1: Essays, second revised edition. Oxford: Blackwell.

Baker, G., & Hacker, P.M.S., (1985). Wittgenstein: Rules, Grammar and Necessity: An Analytic Commentary on the ‘Philosophical Investigations’, Volume 2. Oxford: Blackwell.

Beale, J., (2017). ‘Wittgenstein’s Anti-scientistic Worldview’. In J. Beale & I.J. Kidd, (eds.), Wittgenstein and Scientism. London: Routledge, pp. 59-80.

Black, M., (1978). Lebensform and Sprachspiel in Wittgenstein’s Later Work. In E. Leinfeller (ed.), Wittgenstein and His Impact on Contemporary Thought. Vienna: Hölder- Pichler-Tempsky, pp.325-331.

Brandom, R., (2006). Between Saying and Doing: Towards an Analytic Pragmatism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bronzo, S., (2012). The Resolute Reading and Its Critics: An Introduction to the Literature. Wittgenstein-Studien, Vol.3 (1), pp.45-80.

Cavell, S., (1976). Must We Mean What We Say?. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cavell, S., (1988). Declining Decline: Wittgenstein as a Philosopher of Culture. Inquiry, Vol.31 (3), pp.253-264.

83

Cavell, S., (1989). This New Yet Unapproachable America: Lectures after Emerson after Wittgenstein. Albuquerque: Living Batch Press.

Cavell, S., (1996). Notes and Afterthoughts on the Opening of Wittgenstein’s Investigations. In H. Sluga and D. Stern (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Wittgenstein. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Ch.8.

Conant, J., (2007). Mild Mono-Wittgensteinianism. In A. Crary (ed.), Wittgenstein and the Moral Life: Essays in Honour of Cora Diamond. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, Ch.1.

Conway, G., (1982). Wittgenstein on Foundations. Philosophy Today, Vol.26 (4), pp.332-344.

Davies, M., (2003). Philosophy of Language. In N. Bunnin and E. P. Tsui-James (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy, second edition. Oxford: Blackwell, pp.90-146.

Descartes, R., (1985). The Philosophical Writings of Descartes: Volume I. Translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Descartes, R., (1985). The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Volume II. Translated by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Diamond, C., (1991). The Realistic Spirit: Wittgenstein, Philosophy, and the Mind. London: MIT Press.

Drury, M. O’C., (1981). Conversations with Wittgenstein. In R. Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections. Oxford: Blackwell.

Fogelin, R., (1994). Pyrrhonian Reflections on Knowledge and Justification. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Garver, N., (1994). This Complicated Form of Life: Essays on Wittgenstein. Chicago: Open Court.

Glock, H.-J., (2001). The development of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy. In H.-J. Glock (ed.), Wittgenstein: A critical reader. Oxford: Blackwell, Ch.1.

Goldfarb, W., (1983). I Want you to Bring Me a Slab: Remarks on the Opening Sections of the ‘Philosphical Investigations’. Synthese, Vol.56, pp.265-282.

Goldfarb, W., (2011). “Das Überwinden”: Non-Realist Readings of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. In R. Read and M. Lavery (eds.), Beyond the Tractatus Wars: The New Wittgenstein Debate. Oxford: Routledge, Ch.1.

Guyer, P., (1992). ‘Introduction’. In P. Guyer (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Kant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

84

Habermas, J., (1995). Postmetaphysical Thinking. Cambridge: Polity.

Hacker, P.M.S., (1986). Insight and Illusion, revised edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hacker, P.M.S., (2001). Wittgenstein: Connections and Controversies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hacker, P.M.S., (2007). Gordon Baker's Late Interpretation of Wittgenstein. In G. Kahane, E. Kanterian and O. Kuusela (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker. London: Blackwell, pp.88-122.

Heal, J., (1995). Wittgenstein and Dialogue. Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol.85, pp.63-83.

Hilmy, S., (1987). The Later Wittgenstein: The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method. Oxford: Blackwell.

Horwich, P., (1995). Meaning, Use and Truth. Mind, Vol.104, pp.355-368.

Horwich, P., (1994). Meaning and Metaphilosophy. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol.54 (1), pp.153-158.

Hunter, J.F.M., (1968). “Forms of Life” in Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations”. American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.5 (4), pp233-243.

Hutchinson, H., (2007). What’s the Point of Elucidation? Metaphilosophy, Vol.38 (5), pp.691-713.

Hutchinson, H., and Read, R., (2008). Toward a Perspicuous Presentation of “Perspicuous Presentation”. Philosophical Investigations, Vol.32 (2), pp.141-160.

Hutto, D.D., (2007). Getting Clear about Perspicuous Representations: Wittgenstein, Baker & Fodor. In D. Moyal-Sharrock (ed.), Perspicuous Presentations: Essays on Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Psychology. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp.299–322.

Katz, J., (1990). The Metaphysics of Meaning. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press.

Kenny, A., (1966). Cartesian Privacy. in G. Pitcher (ed.), Wittgenstein: The Philosophical Investigations. London: Macmillan.

Kenny, A., (1973). Wittgenstein. Oxford: Blackwell.

Kenny, A., (1982). Wittgenstein on the Nature of Philosophy. In A. Kenny and B. McGuinness (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp.1-26.

85

Kenny, A. J., (1984). The Legacy of Wittgenstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Kenny, A., (2004). ‘Philosophy states only what everyone admits’. In E. Ammereller and E. Fischer (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations. London: Routledge, Ch.8.

Kenny, A., (2006). A New History of Western Philosophy: The Rise of Modern Philosophy, Volume 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kripke, S., (1982). Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kuusela, O., (2008). The Struggle Against Dogmatism. London: Harvard University Press.

Lurie, Y., (1992). Culture as a Human Form of Life. International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol.32 (2), pp.193-204.

Malcolm, N., (1975). Knowledge and Certainty: Essays and Lectures. London: Cornell University Press.

Malcolm, N., (1984). Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

McDowell, J., (1999). Non-cognitivism and Rule-following. In A. Crary and R. Read (eds.), The New Wittgenstein. London: Routledge, pp.38–52.

McGinn, M., (2001). Saying and Showing and the Continuity of Wittgenstein's Thought. The Harvard Review of Philosophy, Vol.9 (1), pp.24-36.

Morris, K., (2004). Introduction. In Baker (2004), Ch.1.

Morris, K., (2007). Wittgenstein’s Method: Ridding People of Philosophical Prejudices. In G. Kahane, E. Kanterian and O. Kuusela (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker. London: Blackwell, pp.67-87.

Moyal-Sharrock, D., (2015). Wittgenstein on Forms of Life, Patterns of Life, and Ways of Living. Nordic Wittgenstein Review, Vol.4 (Special Issue), pp.21-42.

Nietzsche, F., (1967). The Will to Power. Translated by W. Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, ed by W. Kaufmann. New York: Random House.

Nietzsche, F., (2001). The Gay Science. Translated by J. Naukhoff, ed by B. Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nyíri, J.C., (1982). Wittgenstein’s Later Work in Relation to Conservatism. In B. McGuinness (ed.), Wittgenstein and His Times. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 44–68.

86

Pears, D., (1986). Ludwig Wittgenstein, second edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Pichler, A., (1992). Wittgenstein's Later Manuscripts: Some Remarks on Style and Writing. Wittgenstein and Contemporary Theories of Language, Working Papers No.5, (eds.) P. Henry and A. Utaker, pp.219-251.

Pichler, A., (2007). The Interpretation of the Philosophical Investigations: Style, Therapy, Nachlass. In G. Kahane, E. Kanterian and O. Kuusela (eds.), Wittgenstein and His Interpreters: Essays in Memory of Gordon Baker. London: Blackwell, pp.123-144.

Pitcher, G., (1964). The Philosophy of Wittgenstein. New York: Prentice Hall.

Pitt, J., (1981). Russell and the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club. Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies, Vol.1 (2), pp.103-118.

Plato, (1987). Plato's Apology, Crito and Phædo of Socrates. Translated by H. Cary, 2017 repreint. South Carolina: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.

Preston, A., (2007). Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion. London: Continuum.

Rhees, R., (2015). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Conversations with Rush Rhees (1939– 50): From the Notes of Rush Rhees. Ed by G. Citron. Mind, Vol.124, pp1-71.

Rorty, R., (1989). Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Rorty, R., (2007). Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers, vol.4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Savickey, B., (1999). Wittgenstein’s Art of Investigations. London: Routledge. von Savigny, E., (1991). No Chapter 'On Philosophy' in the "Philosophical Investigations". Metaphilosophy, Vol.22, (4), pp. 307-319.

Schulte, J., (2004). The Builder’s Language – The Opening Sections. In E. Ammereller and E. Fischer (eds.), Wittgenstein at Work: Method in the Philosophical Investigations. London: Routledge, Ch.2.

Stern, D., (2004). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thilly, F., (1925). Kant’s Copernican Revolution. The Monist, Vol.35 (2), pp.329-345.

Turanli, A., (2003). Nietzsche and the Later Wittgenstein: An Offence to the Quest of Another World. Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Vol.26 (Autumn), pp.55-63.

87

Waismann, F., (1968). How I See Philosophy. Ed by R. Harré. London: Macmillan and co.

Whittaker, J.H., (1978). Language-Games and Forms of Life Unconfused. Philosophical Investigations, Vol.1 (4), pp.39-48.

Williams, M., (1988). Transcendence and Return: The Overcoming of Philosophy in Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. International Philosophical Quarterly, vol.38 (4), pp.403- 419.

Wittgenstein, L., (1921). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by B. McGuinness and D. Pears (2004). London: Routledge.

Wittgenstein, L., (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe, P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte, edited by P.M.S. Hacker and J. Schulte (2009). Oxford: Blackwell.

Wittgenstein, L., (1977). Remarks on Colour. Translated by L.L. McAlister, edited by G.E.M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.

Wittgenstein, L., (1980). Culture and Value. Translated by P. Winch, edited by G.H. Von Wright. Oxford: Blackwell.

Wright, C., (1980). Wittgenstein on the Foundations of Mathematics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.